


Marked and Branded Oneshot AUs

by ThroughtheMirrorDarkly



Series: Marked and Branded [11]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Anal Sex, Angst, Ashlinn is a omega with alpha tendicies, BDSM, Cunnilingus, Dark Ritual, Drunken Shenanigans, Explicit Sexual Content, F/F, F/M, Female Character of Color, Fen'Harel is into Kinky Fuckery, Foursome - F/M/M/M, Infidelity, Jealousy, Love/Hate, M/M, Male! Morrigan, More Tags to Appear as I think of them, Multi, Not Canon With Rest of the "Marked and Branded" Stories, Oral Sex, Polyamory, Roleplay, Romance, Sex Magic, Soulmates, Threesome - F/F/M, Torture
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-02-22
Updated: 2018-04-27
Packaged: 2018-09-26 04:33:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 11
Words: 39,826
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9862781
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThroughtheMirrorDarkly/pseuds/ThroughtheMirrorDarkly
Summary: A ripple in the pond can become a wave that crashes upon the shore. Little One Shots of what would have happened if events had unfolded differently for Echo, Ashlinn, Catherine and Mahanon, and where they would have ended up.Ch. 9 - Nightmares plague Echo. Fenris and Hawke lend a hand, but how does this change them all forever. (Three parter)Ch. 10 - When reborn, Ashlinn ends up in Par Vollen and in the care of the Arishok--her former friend, Sten. But things turn dark when Ashlinn wants to go home and the Arishok is not willing to part with his Kadan. (Rape/Non-Con, not a happy ending)Ch. 11 - Mahanon has always had a crush on his boss, Dorian. But there was no way Dorian would ever reciprocate his feelings. Until the aftermath of a drunken night forces Mahanon to confront it all head on. (Mahanon/Dorian)More Chapters Pending.*This is not Canon Compliant with the rest of the "Marked and Branded" Series. Any One-shots that are canon will be stand alone like "A Queen's Proposal", and not grouped into this.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Summary: In another world, Echo agreed to stay with the Dalish for three months before committing to staying with the clan for good or to go to Kirkwall with Hawke. As the deadline approaches, and Echo remains steadfast in her decision to leave with Hawke when he returns, the Keeper in her desperation for the knowledge of the past allows a heinous plan to unfold. In the dark of the forest, when all hope seems lost for Echo, a savoir comes to her aid in the form of Fen’Harel, the Dread Wolf. Neither of them could have anticipated they would be soul mates.

CHAPTER ONE 

“Dread Wolf Take You”

_This could not be happening to her,_ Echo thought as she fought and clawed against her attackers. Her heart pounded with panic, and fear as her clothes were torn from her body, and the three Dalish laughed while deciding who got to ‘play first’. Bile rushed up the back of her throat, but the hand over her mouth forced her to keep it down. 

Two and half months ago, Echo had awoken in a strange tomb filling up with water. She had been saved by a named, Hawke, and brought to the Dalish that were camped on top of Sundermount. After a heated discussion between Hawke and Keeper Marethari, she had been made to stay with the Dalish for three months. Hawke would return, and if Echo wanted to leave then she would come to him to Kirkwall. She should have left with him. Something in her heart told her she hadn’t wanted to stay, but she looked like an elf, so she should stay with elves, right? Her time spent in the camp had been painstaking where she was treated like a curiosity or reverence like she had all the answers in the world. The fact she couldn’t speak a lick of common hadn’t helped, and Keeper Marethari was slow in teaching her. 

As the date for Hawke’s return drew closer, Echo itched to be away from here. She had begun to think that Marethari was deliberately keeping her ignorant for some reason or another. And she would have males of the group come up to Echo, as if Echo was supposed to look at one and fall madly in love with them. Apparently the ancient elves had soul mates of a sort, and Marethari hoped that one of her people would be Echo’s. Plenty of them tried, especially the arrogant and rude hunter Kalen. She had ignored all the advances, her mind set on leaving this place and she would not make any commitments to anyone. It felt like a noose had been drawing tighter and tighter around her neck each time she told Marethari that she wanted to leave, and earlier this morning, she had seen Kalen talking to the Keeper in hushed tones. She hadn’t heard all the conversation, but she heard the ending where Keeper Marethari gave a painstaking sigh, “It must be done.” 

She had made her way to the edge of the forest, a little venture down from the top of the mountain, where she liked to sit and gather her thoughts while gazing at the stars. She had just sat down on her rock when hands clasped her from behind, dragging her into the trees. She kicked and fought and thrashed only to be smacked across the face by Kalen, and when she saw it was him, she was in shock. She knew he was angered by her rejection of his advances, but hadn’t thought he would try anything under the Keeper’s nose. Except it wasn’t under the Keeper’s nose. 

The Keeper had freaking given her blessing to the plan. She didn’t understand all of Kalen’s taunt as he squeezed her breast so painfully that it caused tears to spring into her eyes, but she understood enough. Keeper Marethari would turn a blind eye to them ‘taking their pleasure’ from her, using her for as long as they saw fit as long as one of them ended up getting her pregnant. The Keeper felt that if she were pregnant than she would not leave the clan, and she would be trapped there through her child. Cold air hit her thigh as a hunter, whose name she did not know, pulled her leggings free from her legs and she screamed against the hands that held her down. 

_No, no, no, no!_ Her magic rose inside of her, flaring out to grasp at something tangible when a howl broken through the night and her attackers’ movements stilled before they could further their assault. 

“Wolves?” One whispered. 

“Wolf,” Kalen said, sharply. “Nasar, grab your bow. Deal wit—ahhh!” A blur rushed through the clearing, knocking all three hunters off of Echo’s body before it dragged Kalen off into the shadows. Kalen’s screams and pleas cut through the night followed vicious, animalistic snarls and the sound of tearing flesh. The sound soon went silence, and the night still for several heartbeats. 

“Oh, Creators, it’s the Dread Wolf. It must be!” One hunter cried, and took off running into the night followed by his companion. 

That did not get far. Though Echo laid there trembling on the forest floor, her body still stunned by the swift change in events, she heard their far off screams and she felt terror quiver into her heart. She was glad she was saved from being raped by the three hunters, but she was afraid of what new beast now lurked in the shadows. And oh, she knew it lurked there in the shadows. Immediately following the screams silenced by a painful death, she felt the sensation of eyes on her body and she felt rooted to the spot in terror. The sound of leaves crushing beneath feet made her lift her head slightly, and she gasped at the sight that she saw. 

A great wolf, three times as a large as a regular wolf, stood there. The shadows of the night twisted and curled around it’s jet black fur, and six blood red eyes fixated on Echo’s body, unblinking and intense. It drew closer with calculating and measured steps that gave away to an intelligent mind hidden beneath such a monstrous form, and Echo shook as its walked up the length of her body. Only coming to a stop when it’s enormous paws laid on each side of her head, and the wolf tilted it’s head downward to stare straight into her eyes. “Please…don’t…” she whispered, a trembling hand reaching out. The palm of her hand pressed flat against the wolf’s rib, and she felt a tear roll out of the corner of her eye, certain that this was her doom. Then suddenly the fur beneath her palm dissolved leaving lean muscle in its wake, and the paws on the side of her head morphed into hands—powerful hands with long, lithe fingers—and that terrifying face turned into the handsome visage of an elvhen man. 

On the sides of his head, his hair had been cut close. From the top his head back, the hair was dark and long twisted into dreadlocks that fell down around them like a curtain between them and the world. A crown carved from bones sat upon the top of his head, and wolf pelt had been made into hide armor that hung loosely around his waist, and she felt it brush against her thighs in rather ticklish way that was entirely uncomfortable given the seriousness of the situation. His sharp blue eyes peered down at her face, evaluating and piercing, as if her entire soul was laid bare before his gaze, and his sensual mouth pulled into a slight smirk. His face looked as if it had been carved from the finest marble with high cheekbones, and angled jaw. He was handsome in a way that she had only thought of men in stories could be, and her cheeks flushed red at the thought. “Who…who are you?” She asked, baffled. 

He looked entirely too amusement. “You called for my aid, and yet you did not know to whom you made your plea?” His right hand lifted from the dirty ground, and his fingertips traced the dip of her collarbone. Healing magic soaked into her skin, alleviating the soreness from the hunters’ mistreatment and erasing the bruises that had already begun to form. 

“I…did?” Echo asked, uncertain. 

“Your magic, so bright cutting through the world like a beacon, thrashing wildly and begging for aid,” the elvhen man said, his voice rhythmic and musical. It slid through Echo’s ears in a sensual caress, and she felt all too aware of the hand on her neck. His thumb pressed against her thundering pulse, and she bit her lower lip. “It was impossible to ignore. Now tell me, lethallan, how do you speak the language of the elves so well? I have not heard my tongue so beautifully and perfectly spoken in too long for the elves of Thedas have lost much of it over the years.” 

Echo wasn’t sure what to say. “It…it is the only language I know.” 

“Indeed? How curious.” 

Echo wanted to ask what was so curious, but she bit her lower lip, her eyes flickering across his face. _“Ar lasa mala revas, da’len.” Gentle words whispered, and lips pressed against the crown of her forehead. Magic weaved through the air, and Dirthamen’s vallaslin washed away._ The memory crashed through her without restraint, and stole her breath. Her fingers braced on his chest, clasped around the leather tie the wolf jaw hung from around his throat, and she stared up at him, not sure what to do. The Dalish spoke fearfully about the Dread Wolf, but that memory was not of fear. It had been one of peace and joy. “You…you are Fen’Harel,” she whispered out. 

“Ah? What gave me away?” He gave her a taunting look. 

Echo’s throat bobbed. “I…I remembered my mother, I think,” she said, her mouth suddenly very dry. If that was a memory, what did that mean for Echo Harper of Earth? If she were an ancient elf, did that mean that she had never lived there? Never went to school, or made a friend in Ashlinn? Shoving her existential crisis to the back of her mind, she forged onward as best she could. “She brought me to you. She had you remove Dirthamen’s vallaslin from my face.” 

“Is that so?” He seemed intrigued by what she said, and he ran his fingertips across her face as if trying to remember what vallaslin he had freed her from. She was afraid, but defiant in spite of that fear, resisting the inevitable surrender. It was intoxicating to the Dread Wolf, a challenge in him the beast could not deny. “A tale I will enjoy verifying, and if it be true, then perhaps the world is not as lost as I believed.” 

Echo felt butterflies tremble inside of her belly, and she felt mortification when she realized that she was attracted to the Dread Wolf that caged her beneath his body. He had lowered himself onto his elbows and knees, and she could feel the heat of his body, he was so close. Her body warred with the conflicting emotions from her attack, and now, the feelings in which he invoked. His words and interest in her did not help, not did the adrenaline that pounded through her blood like a siren’s song. The magic that Maratheri claimed that she had, she could feel like a living thing trying to reach out and grasp with greedy fingers at Fen’Harel saying inside her head, _Mine._ _Bad thoughts. Bad thoughts. You were almost raped, and now you want sexy time?_ She scolded herself, then of course her libido retaliated. _Don’t you want to properly thank your savoir?_ It was official. She had read too many Riley Moreno books from Ashlinn’s smutty book collection, and it had officially turned her into a pervert almost willing to throw down with an ancient god—evil by all claims, even though he did just save her—in the middle of a forest floor, surrounding by dead Dalish elves that were just out of her line of sight. _Oh, God. Oh, God. What is wrong with me?_

“Though I fear I have spent a great deal of what magic I had on saving your life, da’len,” Fen’Harel said, with a sly gleam in his eye. “I will need to recover what was lost, and I believe that you can help with that.” 

“Oh?” Echo said, with clear trepidation. 

“I propose a mutually beneficial bargain. It must be so hard to roam this world with only the tongue of our people to speak with. I can grant you the knowledge of the _common_ tongue if you will allow me to borrow your magic. I have depleted myself too greatly,” Fen’Harel said, in reasonable and diplomatic tone of voice that did not match the slightly feral look on his face. “It will not be permanent. You reservoir of mana should recover swiftly with the oncoming days.” 

Echo felt a skittish feeling sweep across her skin, and she stared up at him, with uncertainty. It didn’t sound bad as far as deals went, but she should she trust the Dread Wolf? She had trusted the Dalish, and they had betrayed her. Perhaps, there was more to Fen’Harel then meets the eye. Her memories certainly implied so, and he did save her life. “Okay,” she nodded, feeling as if she had sealed her doom. “Alright, I’ll do it.” 

A slow, sinful smile tugged at his lips. His eyes glinted with amusement as if he knew that she did not know the true depths of the agreement she just made, and he crawled down her body, never once breaking eye contact with her. Her heart smacked against her ribs, thud after thud, and nervousness skirted down her spine when he grasped each of her knees in the palms of his hands. “I accept your patronage, da’len,” Fen’Harel said, in a deep, rumble that made her heart race and spread a blush across her skin. 

“What are you—” She didn’t even get to finish the question. 

Fen’Harel pulled her knees apart, tossing her legs over his shoulder and used his body to keep her thighs spread before his white hot mouth was on the most sacred part of her body. Echo let out a scream—a scream of pleasure? A scream of shock? Fuck, if she knew. She didn’t know if she had expired and this was heaven, or a new type of hell waiting to reveal its true face. She wasn’t sure if she could muster the energy to care. Her body was overwhelm by the hot tongue lapping at her sex as if she were some desert oasis, and he was dying of thirst. White-hot pleasure streaked across her nerve endings, setting her body aflame, and she fought against it. Her hips thrust, trying to buck him off, but that only made his tongue brush against her in new ways that had her quivering. Her fingers knotted in his dreadlocks, and she squeezed trying to pull him, but he growled as if enjoying it, and boy, did she enjoy that rumble against the most sensitive part of her body. 

“Oh, oh, please,” she whimpered. What was she asking for? For him to stop? For him to _never_ stop? Her body trembled, and withered. Inside her head, she acknowledged quietly that this was _different_ from what the Dalish had tried to do her. One, her body, mind and soul rejected the Dalish with a resounding, _No._ There was no playful or slight reluctance, or teasing about it. She had not wanted them in any way shape or form. 

The same could not be said for Fen’Harel. 

The instant she saw him, a feral god who lingered over her body, something inside of her had _wanted_ him. Her body and soul cried out, rejoiced in the pleasure, and in him—so warm, so real, so close. But her mind was not so easily swayed. She kept trying to tell herself that this was wrong. So wrong. _Yet why did it feel so fucking right?_ Her fingers knotted into his hair, not releasing him, but her back arched, head tossed back as her hips bucked against the motions of his wonderful mouth. Her hair split behind her like a waterfall, and the peak of her breasts upturned to the moonlight. She looked like a sacrificial virgin left at the mercy of a pagan god, who if pleased with offering would bring the village good fortune and a good harvest. _A bountiful harvest. Damn,_ she thought, unable to stop the fleeting amusement. 

The elvhen god had no qualms about enjoying her as if she were his feast. His tongue swirled and licked her out, and she watched his face disappear deeper into her thighs. A heady moan rippled through her body, her chest contracting on a sharp breath, as he dipped his tongue inside of her. Tingling pleasure rolled across the length of her spine before knotted at the bottom, it spread from there like searing heat wave that settled in the pit of her stomach, growing brighter and brighter. Everything inside of her came to life, and she felt as if the universe called her name. Her magic rose and crackled, the world around her becoming more intense and vivid. 

Her magic flooded into him as he gorged himself on her aroused juices, and she realized he was siphoning it from her. Growing stronger from it as it was being funneled to him through the pleasurable act, and Echo felt the pleasure spread until it consumed every last pore of her body. She moaned, and her hips jerked against his face, urging him on. If she were to be so through consumed, then she would burn out in a blaze like a shooting star and she would fly as high as one. The ecstasy mounted, reaching its pinnacle and his name fell from her lips as she reached the edge. 

He drew her clit in between his teeth, and suckled in one harsh movement. 

She fell with a scream that reached the heavens, and the entire world melted around. Her body felt weightless as if she were flying, and there was a shift in the air, something vital, like invisible strings that had dangled limp from their body, invisible to the naked eye, reached out. Her strings grasped at his strings, and his strings bind them time in some ancient ritual that she couldn’t understand. It sizzled and pulsed between, then until she could feel everything about him. His body, his mind, his soul. Everything that was him clashing with everything that made up her, and she felt his shock, a brief flicker of dismay then primal satisfaction mixed in with notes of fearful joy. 

It was the most beautiful song, she ever heard. His emotions that rang through her head louder than church bells, and her finger fell limp from his hair as her body collapsed against the ground in a twitching, quivering heap. The elvhen god between her legs was as still as a statue, for the world as he had thought it was had just shifted irrevocably. 

“You…” Fen’Harel breathed out, his forehead pressed against her thigh, and the rigid planes of his back trembled. His shoulder rose with a great breath before he lifted himself up, and crawled up the length of her body. His lips pressed against her, a quick soothing kiss, and Echo couldn’t stop the moan that the taste of her arousal upon his own unique flavor invoked. He broke the kiss to lean his forehead against hers, the tip of his nose brushed her cheek, and there was some new emotion that lingered in those cerulean eyes of his. Something that softened in his demeanor and it left a tremble in her heart. “I did not expect to find you. The fates are kinder to me than they should be, or are exceedingly cruel to place you in my path as it is now. I know not which.” 

“I…” Echo licked her parched lips. Her mind still whirling from the ecstasy, and her body trembled with aftershocks. Her hands pressed against his chest; to drag him close or to push him away, her mind did not know. “I don’t understand.” 

A rueful smile curled upon those sinful lips, glistening still with the honey of her sex. “Dirth'ma,” he told her, before he dipped his head. It was a more insistent and passionate kiss than the last and it made the heat in her blood to start to simmer anew. Her hands quaked before they slid around his muscular body, using his shoulders as her anchor as he pressed the entire length of his body against hers. One of his hands reached down, tangling up leaves and dirt as he grasped the back of her head to give the kiss a better angle, and his tongue plunged into her mouth like a barbarian determined to conquer every inch of it. 

Echo couldn’t believe she was allowing this to happen and yet something in her soul resonant on a primal level with this Dread Wolf. His touch was so different than the Dalish. The Dalish’s advances had been unwanted and unwelcomed. It made her feel shameful, and violated. Fen’Harel’s touch was the antithesis to that. It felt natural as the moonlight that shined down upon their bodies, illuminating them in the night, and made her come to life in a way that she didn’t think possible. It healed her soul where the Dalish had attempted to tarnish it, and made her feel wanted. Made her feel worthy of being treasured instead of being used. 

She melted against him, who dominated her with his subtle strength and magic. She could tell from the hard bulge that pressed against her stomach that he was eager and ardent. Sweat trickled down the valley of her breast, teasing and taunting in its own way, and her magic pressed against the flesh of her skin before reaching out to his. She didn’t understand it. She only knew it made him groan against her, and bit her lower lip in a way that sent sharp pleasure to her core before he retaliated. A cry welled up her throat, and was swallowed greedily by his lips as invisible fingers and mouths danced across her skin. A thumb strumming against her clit, her nipples tugged in a wickedly hot lips, and his fingers—his actual fingers—pressed through her lips, to the glossy passage hidden there. 

“Oh…oh, _please_ ,” she pleaded against his lips. She felt his lips curve into a smile. 

“How can I ignore such a beautiful and earnest plea?” And two fingers slid deep inside of her. 

Echo’s back arched off of the ground, a sense of rightness flooded through her veins, and her thigh tightened the hand that worked in a furious pace, in and out of her. A hunger clawed at her to get at all of him, to mark him like his teeth marked the side of her neck, and her right hand slid down the hard plane of his chest down to his crotch. “Oh, fuck,” she murmured, feeling that hard throbbing length through the hide armor. Oh, she could have easily ducked her hand beneath the armor and claimed her prize skin to skin. Yet this gave her a sense of control, allowing her to tease him and to feel his mighty body quake at her touch, and know that she had just as much power over him as he did her. That she could render him as helpless and wildly wanton, too. 

Something that had been dormant, something forgotten for so long had awoken inside of her. Something that she had in turn awoken in him and it filled that hole in her heart. The one that always made her feel like something was wrong, or missing. It was as if her soul had known he was out there, and had been waiting. It sounded cheesy, and horribly romantic. Echo knew even as the thought crossed her mind, and damn it, she wished this had happened under different circumstances. But fuck, she couldn’t pass it by. 

Her eyes fluttered, feeling the precipice of another orgasm on the rise. The stimulation was too much, almost painful, and yet she craved it more than anything else. Reverent whispers, broken prayers of his name fell from her lips, and she felt him pull his fingers from her burning thighs before he freed his erection from her pumping grasp, and moved his armor over to press his tip at her entrance. He braced his heels against the ground, and shoved himself into with one hard stroke. 

A cry of pleasure echoed into the night, driving the birds away from nearby trees, and Echo clawed at his back in order to catch her breath. The sensation of her body giving to him, her wetness soothing away the burn of being stretch had been the last straw, and her body quivered and shook around him. Stars flashed behind her eyes lids, and Fen’Harel did not stop to allow her to regain her senses. Instead, he pumped his hips into hers, the sound of flesh smacking into flesh reverberated around them in the forest, and every thrust seemed to push him deeper and harder into her warm, welcoming body. It was unlike anything she had ever felt before. The fumbling attempts with her only boyfriend when she was only sixteen had been humiliating and painful. 

But this was no fumbling boy. This was a male in his prime, revered as a god, and he claimed her like one. 

Quick, ravenous kisses were exchanged between constantly moans, and heavy breathing. Her heart beat like a drum, and nothing mattered apart from their bodies in that moment. She clutched at him, whispering his name, and he grasped her chin in a firm grip. Her eyes opened, startled, and met his. The length of his jaw trembled, and he growled through clenched teeth, “Solas.” 

“S-Solas?” Echo panted, confused. He had suddenly stopped, halted, and her body clenched around him, silently begging him to continue. 

“Call me…Solas,” he told her, with great effort. 

Echo swallowed thickly. There was this desperate glint in his gaze, something that called out to her, and the name fell from her lips. “Solas…ah!” A sharp, reedy cry was pulled from her as he started thrusting into her again, and he got faster and faster which each time his name fell from her lips. It was a chase for the ultimate pleasure, to have their bodies plunge off that edge together, and bind them in the most basic and sensual of ways. “Solas! Solas, yes!” The sheer force of her orgasm drew out a raw scream from her throat, and her body ensnared him in its velvet vice. 

His head was tossed back revealing the corded muscles of his neck, the dread locks falling down around his neck like a waterfall, and his shaft swelled before she felt white hot spurts splash deep inside of her. Each spurt lashed against her overly stimulated tissues, and caused her inner muscled to sporadically milk him, trying to draw his seed into her womb. Echo’s body withered, and convulsed against his and if it weren’t for the hold he had on her, she felt like she would have lost her mind. It felt like an eternity passed before their body slumped, spent and sated. 

Fen’Harel rolled onto his back, drawing her with him and bundled her into his arms. She had never felt so safe and secure. A far cry from what the night had started out as, and she mumbled, tiredly, “I’m keeping you.” 

A low laugh rumbled through the chest beneath her, and Fen’Harel’s hands stroked her back, gentle and soothingly. “Yes,” he told her, as she drifted towards sleep, her body too exhausted to stay conscious much longer. His voice sounded pained, and regretful. So much so that she wished she could lift her head, and see his expression. “But not yet. Not yet. There is so much I still have to do, even though your presence has altered my path.” 

Her lips trembled, her eyes closed against her will. 

“Though I may be gone in the morning, I will return to you, ma’lath, this I swear.” 

And after those words, Echo was gone. 

* * *

She awoke to the morning light, and the birds chirping. Her body ached in a pleasant sort of way, and the memories of last night came back to her immediately. Her eyes pulled opened slowly, and she knew that Fen’Harel was gone. The warmth of his body that had surrounded her last night long since faded, and a light blanket—magically conjured no doubt—and the protective ward that sheltered her that gave off gentle heat was poor substitutes. Tears prickled along the edges of her eyes, even though he warned her that he would not be here, and she laid there staring up at the canopy of trees above wondering why she even cared or felt so cheated. She had known the elf barely more than a hot minute—an extremely hot and pleasure minute—but a minute all the same. Yet her soul keenly felt the cut like the sharp edge of a blade, and she sat up slowly only to feel something slid against her naked breasts. She looked down, startled, and her heart stopped inside of her chest. Her fingers quaked as they lifted to the wolf’s jawbone that hung around her neck, and she felt the torrent and painful emotions inside of her settle. 

_“Though I may be gone in the morning, I will return to you, ma’lath, this I swear.”_

Those words came back to her as she clasped the jawbone to her breast, and they meant more than she could comprehend. She had never bought into love at first sight, or soul mates. Too jaded by the world, and yet here she was, daring to hope. She rose from the ground, noting that he had taken the time to clean her after their passionate tryst, and felt stirring of warmth in her heart. No mad god, or beast would have cared like that. No beast would have cleaned her or given her a blanket or ward her from the dangers of the forest. No, an evil god would have left her on the ground, cold and alone with his seed trickling from her thighs, branding her and would have laughed at abandoning her fate. 

But Fen’Harel showed consideration. He showed her kindness, and courage, and passion. Heaven help her, she had been ruined by that passion and doubted another lover would ever make her feel so incredible alive and wanted. The wolf jaw grew hot in her hand, as warning her to not have such thoughts, and she looked down at it in brief amusement. “You going to tell, are you?” She asked, with an eyebrow arched upward. The wolf jaw trembled with some innate magic in response that had her let out a shriek of startled laughter, but she could not be surprised. Wolves mated for life, and were possessive creatures. A man who claimed to be the, _Dread Wolf_ would no doubt have much in common with the animal. 

She rose to her feet, the leaves crinkling beneath them, and she spotted something just outside of the protective ward. She walked towards it, the ward trembled as she passed it before it dissipated entirely, and she knelt down towards the green leaves and blue cornflower petals that had been arranged on the ground in the form of a dress. Her finger reached out, touching the edge, and the leaves and petals stirred to life. Swirling upward and around her body until they were no longer plant-like, instead they caressed her as silk, forming a long silk green dress with swirling blue pattern that streaked through the shiny material that clung to her skin as intimately as a lover. Blue slippers with a wolf shaped clasp appeared on her bare feet, shielding them from the rough forest floor. “Foolish wolf,” she said, with no heat. Had he not said he had needed to conserve his magic? Though if magic could be syphon from every sexual act than perhaps he had taken plenty from her last night, she thought with a wry grin. 

She made her way out of the forest, taking her time. She didn’t look at the bodies of the mangled Dalish, not even allowing them to exist in her mind because they were unworthy of notice. She made her way back up the path towards Sundermount and the Dalish camp. Oh, she would not stay there. Not after what the Keeper had decided to let happen for the ‘good of the Dalish’, but she would be damned if she allowed them to keep her things. She would charge in there, head held high, and show Marethari that her hunters had failed. And that failure would come to bit them back in the hind end, of that Echo had little doubt. 

When she arrived there was a large gathering around the center of the camp, and she heard arguments, along with her attackers’ name being tossed about. A few even expressed concern over her being gone, and Echo wondered what reactions she would get when she spilled the beans over what Marethari had allowed to happen. Denial? Disgust? She wasn’t sure if she cared if they believed her, but that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to call out the Keeper on her misdeeds, if only to vent her hatred for the other woman out. 

“Excuse me,” she said, sliding into the group. 

“Echo!” 

“It’s Echo!” 

The Dalish parted, stunned by her return, and Echo made her way through the throng of them, a vision in her flowing dress resembling more like a goddess from their legends rather than one amongst them. She didn’t hear the whispers wondering about where she has been, or where her dress came from. Instead, she headed to the heart of the group, where the Keeper stood. As soon as her eyes set on Keeper Marethari, she felt a vicious, blistering rage quake in the wolf jaw and she reached up, brushing a soothing thumb across it. The rage pulled back, but lingered there just as it did in her heart. 

The Keeper turned, and shock was written upon her face when she saw Echo. 

“Hello, Keeper Marethari,” Echo said, standing toe to toe with the other woman. “I believe we need to have a very important discussion.” 

“You…have returned, and are unharmed. And you speak the common tongue now, I see,” Keeper Marethari said, her eyes searched her. It was as if she were trying to learn all the secrets that Echo possessed, as if she had a right to them just because Echo was an ancient elf. It was in that moment Echo realized she wasn’t even a person to Marethari. Just an object in which she could try and reclaim a past long since dead, and Echo felt even sicker than she previously had been. 

“Yes, I have to credit the gifted tongue that taught me,” Echo said, straight faced. If the world knew that learning a language could be as easy as going down on someone and a little magic, a lot more people would probably be bilingual. 

The Keeper stared at her for a long moment. No longer was the meek and timid woman who stumbled about in a new and frightening world. No here was a woman empowered, and standing tall with the air of a queen on a throne. It was not what she had expected her to be like when she came out of those woods, and Marethari’s eyes fell onto the wolf’s jaw that hung around Echo’s neck, and went pale. “Da’len,” she started, carefully. “Have you seen our hunters? Kalen, Jorel, and Nasar have not returned this morn to camp.” 

A cold smile pulled at the corner of Echo’s mouth before she could help herself, and she looked the Keeper dead in the eye without one ounce of remorse. “They are dead, Keeper,” Echo told her, her voice toneless. “After they attacked me, they were torn to shred by the Dread Wolf.” 

“Da’len,” Marethari gasped, stricken and eyes darting down to the necklace as if her fears were confirmed, “how can you even claim such a thing? This is not a matter of jest, and nor should anyone jest with the Dread Wolf’s name.” 

“I do not jest, Keeper Marethari. You can send your men to collect your dead. Give them a proper burial though they aren’t worth of that, and you know exactly why that is,” Echo voice now shook with anger, and bitterness. “I should have left with the man, Hawke. Everything in my heart told me that was the right path for me, but I decline because out of some sick sense of obligation that my mind told me I had for you people. I should have left this mountain and never looked back.” 

Keeper Marethari’s throat bobbed. “That necklace—” 

“A gift given to me by the Dread Wolf himself,” Echo said, proudly. 

Horrified and disgusted gasps came from all around, and several of the elves skirted back away from her as if being too close to her would unleash a hellish kind of doom upon them. It was better having them further away, harmless or not, than to have too close right now. Her mind could not handle a Dalish getting near her because it just drew her back to the panic of last night, and she needed to stay in control of her emotions here. 

“You dare wear such a thing?” One clan member demanded, aghast. 

“I dare for it was the Dread Wolf that protected me from _your_ hunters,” Echo snarled, startling them with such an accusation. She turned her vicious gaze upon Keeper Marethari, and held her chin high. “You swore I would be safe amongst your people. That I would be lost to the wolves in Kirkwall, or the wolves in the wilderness if I had left. Instead, it was the wolves right in your camp that I should have been worried about. Thankful a more dangerous wolf came along, and took a rather good liking to me.” 

“Da’len, you should think before you speak,” Marethari spoke, trying to placate the elvhen woman. 

“Do they know, Marethari? Do they know what you were going to let your hunters do to me?” Echo’s voice broke, remembering the sickening feel of Kalen’s hands painful twisting her breast, his laughter as one hunter held her down and another pulled her leggings off. If Fen’Harel had been only moment later…she shuddered at the thought, and the wolf jaw gave a soothing tremble from where it hang around her neck. It conjured the same feeling she had when she laid in Fen’Harel’s arms, and she held onto that feeling to push her through. “You were going to let them _rape_ me.” 

Marethari looked away, and gasps of shock reverberated through the clan. 

“The Keeper wouldn’t…” one elf woman said, shaking her head. “She wouldn’t!” 

“She did,” Echo said, not caring if they came to believe her. She didn’t need their belief or support, but she would be damned if she didn’t attempt to expose Marethari’s machinations for what they were. “She took my armor and my weapons, claiming to need to study them. She knew that I would go to the edge of the forest, and the hunters laid in wait like dogs that smelled a bitch in heat. They ambushed me, and attacked me, and would have taken turns raping because the thought was if I ended up pregnant than I would be too scared to leave the clan.” 

Marethari lifted her head, and drew herself up. Her gaze clashed with Echo’s mismatch one, and she said, “A Keeper must do whatever it takes to remember the past, even if it must take regrettable measures to do so. If you left the clan, then the knowledge you had on our past would have been gone and I could not risk it,” the Keeper said, sharply. Mixed reactions came from the clan. Some outraged, others confused on how to feel, and others felt the ends justified the means as Marethari did. 

“It is not _your_ past. It is my past,” Echo said, glaring. She practically vibrated with rage, and took a step towards the Keeper. The sound of an arrow being notched came from behind her, but she ignored it. “You have no claim on it, and I’ll be damned if I share a single thing I remember with any of you.” 

“You must,” Marethari said, shaking her head. “It is for the good of the Dalish—” 

“I am not Dalish!” Echo roared. “I am elvhen!” 

The shout reverberated through camp, leaving silence in its wake. She could feel the heavy stares from those around her, and she could hear the silent question that hung in the air, _What was the difference?_ And the answer was ignorance. Ignorance was the difference, and while Echo was not sure what to make of this life as more memories bubbled up inside of her, she knew that any elvhen worth anything would be ashamed of the woman before her. 

“And I am leaving,” Echo finished on a whisper. Turning on her heel, she marched to the aval that housed her belongings, and hurried about to gathering them. 

“No!” Marethari thundered, chasing after her with quick footsteps. “I will not allow it.” 

“So you deny me my freedom? Is the oh, so noble Keeper making me a slave?” Echo sneered, continuing to pack her things. The darker part of her heart relished in the flinch that Marethari gave, and a bitter smile twitched upon her lips. “How history repeats itself.” 

“History repeats itself? What is that supposed to mean?” Master Ilen demanded, hotly. 

“Nothing,” she said, with a shake of her head. Anger, betrayed as she might fear, she did not need to be cruel to the rest of the clan. They were not like those three hunters. Most of them had been caring, and kind towards her, and none of them had known what Marethari was willing to turn a blind eye to. The ones that seemed to approve of Marethari’s actions were faceless to her, and therefore unimportant. “It means nothing.” 

“No, it doesn’t,” Master Ilen was no fool. “What does it mean?” 

Echo’s jaw worked up and down. Her head ducked and she picked up her knapsack, filled with the few things that had been given to her along with what was on her when she escaped the flooding tomb. “You wear the marks of your gods proudly, and to you they have good meanings. To me? They are the brands in which gods marked their slaves,” Echo said, with a sorrowful look. 

Marethari jerked back as if physical hit and Master Ilen looked stricken. 

“No!” 

“You lie!” 

“Slave markings? They are slave markings?” 

Marethari was the first to recover. “Da’len, just because you are angry,” she started, but Echo cut her off with an imperious wave of her hand. 

“It is not out of anger. Master Ilen has done nothing to deserve my anger, Keeper,” Echo said, her tone careful and mild. Her eyes blazed with a righteous fury, and her jaw shook. “The rest of the clan knew nothing about what you were going to do, so I would not make up cruel lies to hurt them. You are the only deserving of my wrath, Keeper Marethari, and I hope the Dread Wolf haunts you dreams until the end of your days. You are no elvhen. Real elvhen don’t hurt their kin just for the sake of rebuilding a past that is better left dead.” 

The Keeper did not try to stop her after that, and Echo made her way down the mountain, not looking back at the chaos that the truth had wrought. Instead, she followed the path not stopping to sleep, or eat. Instead, for a day and half she toiled underneath moon and sun until she reached Kirkwall. The city was intimidating and fierce and beautiful as it was terrible. Echo Harper did not know what laid upon the path before her, but she knew somewhere along the way a Dread Wolf would be there, waiting. 


	2. Teasing an Avvar is a Bad Idea (Or a Really Good One)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> An Avvar man claims his captured bride, Ashlinn, when she pushes him beyond the limits of his control, and in the end, neither of them mind. *Roleplaying
> 
> Pairing: Alistair/Ashlinn

CHAPTER TWO 

“Teasing the Avvar Is a Bad Idea”

* * *

She taunted him, and teased him. 

She should have known better in hindsight to tease an Avvar chief. 

The second she had let her guard down, he had captured her and brought her to his hold. She viciously fought his every advance, giving him everything he thrown at her and paid it back in kind. He demanded obedience, but reveled in her defiance of him, confusing her to know end. Knowing there was no way out, she teased him. It was no hardship, with his golden hair and body sculpted that looked like it had been sculpted by the finest artist, and eyes that enthralled her. It frustrated him because he was trying to be noble—ha! A barbarian noble—and not force himself upon her, but each lingering touch, where she would _accidently_ brush her breast against his arm, or _accidently_ back into him causing her backside pressing against his manhood, was cracking his prized self-control. She wanted him to feel out of control, to feel out of depth as she felt in this strange Avvar hold amongst people that she, Lady Cousland, had little to nothing in common with. 

Yet her mind cautioned her, a caution that went unheeded, that she should not taunt a beast. She knew that it was reaching its boiling point, and when he had caught her pleasuring herself on his bed—purposely to leave the smell of sex to taunt him as he slept—she knew she had gone a step too far. He was on Ashlinn like a prowling jungle cat with its prey, and pinned her to the bear skin rug. With a knee, he knocked her legs apart and lined his large cock up with her entrance before he slid himself. A frisson of liquid heat flowed through her veins, as his length stretch the tight walls of her vagina, and she couldn’t seem to breathe. It was like nothing she had ever felt before. Like velvet covered steel that pressed inside of her in the most primal of way causing a painful pleasure that was too much, too fast, and yet she _needed_ more. Her past lovers had been nothing like this, and her core convulsed, trying to shove out the intruder but at the same time draw him deeper. Her back arched and pressed against his slick check as one great hand grasped at her breast, kneading the globe with a reverent caress before he forced her stretch her arms out above her head, her front half pressed now with the ground. 

Ashlinn panted, and mewled. His cock hit her with a new delicious angle that had her seeing stars as he slid impossibly deeper inside of her, the tip of his cock slamming into her womb and each thrust shoved her sensitive nipples across the bearskin rug in the most tantalizing way. Her fingers knotted in the fur beneath her, and she clenched her eyes closed, lost to the ecstasy that consumed every inch of her. His movements were slow and calculated to draw out the pleasure, and make her wither beneath him. “Are you going to come for me, Lady Cousland? The barbarian whose cock is deeper inside of you than any man has ever been?” 

“No, no,” she denied, and yet her body betrayed her. Her back arched pressed into his chest as her walls clamped down around him in a vice, and her eyes clenched tightly closed. He fucked her through the orgasm, his pace only stuttering slightly, and she cried out against the rug. She beat her fist against the ground, and hated how his laughter rumbled through him, and into her body. 

“Oh, yes,” the Avvar man purred, running his hands down the length of her spine. There was something reverent about the gesture, so different from the brutal way he claimed her, and made love to her. “You claimed I would not conquer you, but here you wither with me between your thighs, so wet and wanton,” he said, voice roughened with pure lust and pleasure. “How long have you wanted this? How long have you wanted me to fill you up with my seed, and own you heart, mind and soul?” 

“I haven’t,” Ashlinn denied, but to her shame it was lie. “I haven’t!” 

A large hand came down on her ass, sharp and hard. The unexpected pain sent a jolt through her, and her pussy clenched around him. “Do not lie to me, wench,” his voice sharp and hard, and he delivered another smack to her backside, causing the reaction once again and a low groan of pleasure fell from his lips. “I saw you in the forest. Bathing like a nymph in the water, and you knew that I was there, and in knowing that you washed yourself, slowly. Seductively, daring for me to reach out and take you there. But I did not! I did not!” His voice was sinful as the act that they were committing upon the floor, where he had mounted her like a bitch in heat, and testing her body’s limits in ways that she had not been tested before. “My patience rewarded me in time, and I took you, brought you here to make you mine!” 

Ashlinn shrieked, in denial or in pleasure she was sure. The way he rotated his hips made him touch a spot deep in her walls, hidden away, that made her hips snap back against his desperately and nearly had her over the edge once again. He made her body sing and pushed her to new heights that she did not even knew she could reach. The sounds of his sex moving in and out of wet hole were obscene, and a part of her reveled in it. In the way he conquered her. 

“Even when I had every right…to claim you. I stole you, and you are mine,” he spoke, voice thick and harsh. “I waited. I wanted to give you time, and time after time you returned to taunt me with what I could not have, but you stepped too far, milady. Taunting an Avvar by pleasuring yourself in his bed? Did you imagine it ended any other way…than… _this_ ,” he punctuated the last few words with spanks, and the pain had turned into a slow burn that had Ashlinn moaning, and gasping. He kneaded the globes of her ass, the redness on her pale skin a mouth-watering sight. 

His claims were true. She had laid amongst his furs, inhaling his scent—the smell of his haunting her in her dreams—and soon stripped off her clothes. She hadn’t intended on getting caught, but she had imagined him. Him leaning over her, his hands on her breasts instead of her own, and she had wished it had his fingers stroking between her legs and driving her to a climax. Her wish was granted when he slammed into his room, and there had been a split second of stillness that fell over the room, where their eyes clashed. She remembered the way his pupils dilated as his lips part, and he was across the room in a flash, hauling her out of the bed. She remembered the part of her that cried, _Yes! Finally yes!_

“Yes…if you need the truth then yes, I wanted you…I…” Ashlinn struggled to keep her sanity about her. His stamina was something to be applauded, and she was certain he was trying to kill her with pleasure. “I imagined it was you…ah, ohhh…” He had leaned back on his haunches, wrapping his arm around her stomach pulling her up along with him. She now straddled him, with her back completely flushed against his hard muscled chest, but her legs were like useless noodles. He didn’t seem to care, rolling his hips up into hers in a painstaking slow rhythm. “When I touched myself…I imagined it was you taking me, and claiming me. I wanted to be yours for so long,” her voice was reedy and frantic as his thumb stroked her pulsing clit. “Please…please…” 

“A reward for your confession,” he said, then he pinched the little bud between his forefinger and thumb, twisting it gently, and she came around him. It was slower than her last orgasm had been, but no less intense. It rolled over her in great waves, and he stilled allowing her to take what she needed form him in that moment before her body slumped back against him. His length had swelled up inside of her, and she could feel the tension running through his body, knowing he was close. Running her hand down the length of his left arm, she grasped his hand and brought it up to her mouth. She pressed a worshipful kiss to the palm of his hand before placing a gently, lingering one on his third finger where a golden band—matching the one of her own hand—rested. 

Alistair pressed a quick kiss against her temple before he lifted her out of his lap, and off of his erection. He laid her out on the floor, on her back, and crawled over top of her. His palmed his swollen manhood, stroking from the base to the tip as he stared down at her beautiful body. She always looked so ravaged and ruined after an orgasm. The way her lips were plump and red, and that blush that spread down from her cheeks, across her neck where her pulse hammered violently, and settled upon her breasts that heaved with her desperate breaths. Her blue dazed eyes stared up at him, and she looked like a sensual goddess that had been put on this earth solely for his pleasure. The head of his cock swelled, and with a flick of his thumb against the sensitive tip, his body shuddered as he came. 

Ashlinn gasped, her body jolting as the hot semen painted her thighs and stomach. It should have been scandalizing for him to do that, she should feel humiliation, and yet instead, she _liked_ it. Alistair collapsed onto her body, propping himself up on his unsteady limbs to keep his full weight from crushing her. He buried his face into her neck, droplets of sweat rolling off his skin. “Wow,” Alistair said as he tried to catch his breath. His chest was slick with perspiration, and his heart hammered in his chest. “That was…wow. What story was this for again?” Alistair asked, his tongue wetting his parched lips. 

“The Avvar’s Bride,” Ashlinn panted out, pressing a kiss against his collar bone. She shifted her body so he could lay down against her comfortably. Her body cradling his in such a way that it seemed like they had been made to fit together, and she ran her fingers through his hair. “It’s a new series that I have been working on. I kept getting stuck on the love scenes, and figured I’d rope my charming and adoring husband into…helping me do a little research and work out the kinks,” she said, with an impish smile tossed up at him. 

Alistair chuckled. “Can I just your husband is a very lucky man? And your… _dedication_ to your research is one to be applaud,” he told her, with a mischievous smirk upon his lips. His arms settled around her, holding her tightly to him. He would never get enough of having her in his arms. 

“Why thank you,” Ashlinn said, cheekily. She then hissed when her breasts rubbed against his skin, the peaks sore from being rubbed against the carpet. “Although I think my boobies are going to have carpet burn.” 

“Possibly,” Alistair said, running a finger across the rosy peak. He grinned when Ashlinn nipped his shoulder in retaliation for the stroke. “Just so you know if you need me to, I’ll be happy to kiss them all better for you.” 

“Oh, such the gentlemen,” she fluttered her eyes up at him in an exaggerated manner. “And who says chivalry is dead?” 

Alistair laughed, before he pressed his mouth firmly against hers. He led them in a slow passionate kiss, his tongue push open the seam of her lips and slid deep into her mouth, mimicking the dance their bodies had done just moments ago. They laid there content, and just gently savoring the feel of one another for several minutes when Ashlinn broke the kiss, and gave Alistair a look. “What?” He said, defensively. 

“Again?” Ashlinn laughed, when his half-hard erection pressed against her thigh. “You are insatiable!” 

“What can I say?” He pressed a long kiss against her lips. “I’m a weak, weak man.” 


	3. Hey, There Jealousy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summary: Isabella comes up with a sly way to get Hawke to jump Echo’s bones, and get the two dewey-eyed pair finally together. But the plan backfires when Hawke’s jealousy rears its ugly head, and his apology may come too little, too late. (Far warning starts out a tad crackish, but ends rather serious.)
> 
> Inspired by the song: “I’m Coming Over” by Chris Young

CHAPTER TWO 

“Hey, there Jealousy”

* * *

“I can’t believe I let you talk me into this,” Echo said, flustered. 

“A little liquor can persuade anyone,” Isabella huffed. “Now stop squirming.” 

“I can’t help it,” Echo hissed. She had never been in this position. It was usually she who did the outrageous thing, and to laugh at Ashlinn’s embarrassment. Maybe that is was because she missed her best friend that she allowed herself to be duped by Isabella’s ‘girl time’, and was now getting certain areas of her body waxed. Her arm pits were sore, her legs ached, and now Isabella was working on her bits. “I changed my mind. I’ll just cut it all.” 

“I’ve already trimmed it down, just getting rid of the excess. There’ll be a little triangle of hair on top and be clean and nice where it matters by the time we are done with waxing,” Isabella tutted, with an eye roll. “You’ll thank me when some nice looking lad gets into your unmentionables, and there isn’t all sort of hair in the way.” 

“My pubic hair was not that bad,” Echo snapped. 

Isabella giggled. “No, it wasn’t. You keep yourself all nice and neat which makes my job easier, but you wouldn’t believe the things that I have seen, and I have seen a _lot,”_ Isabella said, waggling an eyebrow. “There was this one woman who had a bush the likes—” 

“That I don’t need to hear about,” Echo said, quickly. 

“Spoilsport,” Isabella pouted. 

“Ouch!” Echo jumped when extra hot wax was slathered on her sensitive skin. “You did that on purpose.” 

Isabella smiled, impishly. “Perhaps. You know I always thought elves were hairless down here,” she commented, idly spooning the wax. “I’ve bumped bit with plenty of elves before, and none of them ever had hair on their bits.” 

“First off, we aren’t ‘bumping bits’. Sorry to disappoint you if you thought this is where this was going to lead. You got me out of my clothes, so just take that win,” Echo said, pointedly. She could appreciate that Isabella was a beautiful woman, but she just wasn’t physically attracted to women. It wasn’t curves or soft lips that made her blood boil, or ‘loins quiver’ as Isabella would say. It was the hard planes of a man’s chest, broad shoulders that she could hold onto, and large muscular thighs pressed into hers that were the things of Echo’s fantasies. “Secondly, why wouldn’t elves have hair? Pubic hair might be a pain at times, but it does serve an actual purpose.” 

Isabella shrugged. “Hmm. I guess elves are more conscious about there down there hair than other races,” the pirate concluded, placing the strips of parchment over the wax. She had to press them down, and dipped her fingers into the water basin. Taking the cool water on her fingertips, she cooled the wax down allowing it do its job. 

“Down there hair?” Echo said, her voice slightly strained. Despite the mortification she felt at having Isabella eye level with her vagina, and giving her a wax, amusement burst through her. The corners of her lips twitched, and she ran her hands down her face. “I think I need another drink, if I’m going to survive thi—ah!” 

And then everything shot to hell. Honestly, if Isabella had planned this, she couldn’t have done it better. It had been the perfect sort of circumstances. Hawke, along with several of his companions had come to meet up with Isabella and Echo for Wicked Grace. Hawke had lifted his hand to knock on the door when Echo had screamed thanks to Isabella ripped a strip of parchment off without warning, and so Hawke thought that there was trouble. So him, and his hoard burst through the door, and all of filled the room in the next instant. 

“Hawke!” Isabella shouted. “Damnit! You are paying for that door!” 

“Out! Get out!” Echo screamed, horrified. She could have handled the rest of them stomping in her, but not Hawke. Anyone, but Hawke. Despite all her heart telling her not to, she had grown deep feelings for the man. At first, it started out as a small crush. Fleeting hero worship she supposed for he saved her life, but over time as their friendship developed so did these feelings. Feelings that she tried to put away, and hide from the world. No matter how hard she hid them though Hawke always seemed to pull them out of her heart with a smile, or a hug that lingered to long. The long nights where she had stayed up with him when nightmares plagued his sleep, and where they would just talk about anything and everything, and the way he’d sometimes look at her as if she were the most wonderful thing in the world. With all of that, Hawke had wormed his way inside of Echo’s heart against all the walls she had set up, and damn her, she felt like a miserable fool knowing her love would never be requited. “Isabella, did you even lock that door?” 

“Uh, no?” Isabella looked like a deer cot in a hunter’s crosshair. 

“What…what is happening, right now?” Ander’s mouth dropped open. 

“Maker’s breath,” Aveline turned her gaze away. “This is what I get for thinking it was safe to come down to the Hanged Man.” 

“Are we playing Wicked Grace naked now?” Merrill asked, confused. 

“I…I…” Sebastian choked. 

Fenris didn’t say a word, just stared stonily. 

Varric blinked, hard. “Well, didn’t see this one coming.” 

“Oh, this is a good dream,” Hawke purred, at the sight before him. Both women were like night and day, beautiful each in their own way. Isabella, a dusky goddess with kneeling in such a way that accentuated her generous curves, her sensuality blazed like the sun and she was wholly unashamed in her nakedness. Echo, her skin as pale as the moonlight, her curves not as generous as Isabella’s, but enough to satisfy any man, with an arm shielding her breasts—rosy pink nipples his mind supplied from the quick glimpse he caught of them—in an attempt at modesty as if another woman was not kneeling between her thighs. Hawke’s golden eyes lingered on Echo a little longer as if memorizing the contours of her body for a later time. “I have surely died and the Maker has blessed me.” 

Isabella let out a light laugh of amusement while Echo kept trying to cover herself the best she could. Since Isabella didn’t even halt putting the wax on down below, that meant she had to feebly shielded her bosom with one arm while the other was placed on the bed to keep herself steady. “This cannot be happening,” Echo whispered, underneath her breath. Her face went jet red, and she looked like she wanted the ground to swallow her whole. “Oh, God, _why_ is this happening?” 

Hawke reached to start taking off his armor when Fenris elbowed his hand in his side, and he glanced behind him at the others. He gave them a confused look when he realized he was the only getting undressed. “Wait. What’s going on? Is this not the part of the dream where everyone starts getting naked to join in the fun?” 

Echo dropped her hand from her breast to grab the washcloth, and tossed it across the room. It flew through the air, and hit Hawke’s face with a wet smack. Hawke jolted as if he had been just doused with flames, and his expression when wide-eyed and still. “That never happens in my dreams,” Hawke said, with a strangled note. So he was awake. Truly utterly awake, and a very much naked Echo in his gaze which complicated things quite a bit. 

“Hawke,” Aveline said, her cheeks already red with embarrassment turned darker with amusement. She turned and walked out of the room, but that still left quite a bit of gawkers. 

“I—I…” Sebastian floundered, finally coming out of his coma and regaining some of his senses. His blue eyes blinked hard, darting from Isabella to Echo and his left hand trembled. “I need to go ask the Maker’s forgiveness,” and he bolted from the room without a good-bye, not that anyone would have given reply. 

“Why? Why? Why?” Echo demanded, looking up at the ceiling. A huge knot of anxiety twisted in her chest, and perspiration dotted along her forehead. She felt like her heart was trying to beat out of her chest, and she fought back the tears of humiliation that prickled at the corner of her eyes. 

“Hawke, shouldn’t we leave?” Fenris said, roughly. Though he looked more composed than the rest of them, he was no less appreciative of the sight before them. If no man, or woman, claimed they were not stirred by such a sight, Fenris would claim they were not made of flesh and blood. 

“Probably,” Hawke nodded. He didn’t move an inch towards the door. 

“Then why aren’t you?” Fenris asked. 

“Because all the blood supply to my brain has flooded south, and I can’t seem to remember how to walk,” Hawke answered, simply. The truth was far more complicated than that. Heat pooled through his blood, his body coming to life in ways that it hadn’t in a long time, and his mind fought to process that the woman who had haunted his dreams sat before him like a feast. She had many times before in his dreams, but it had been him who had sat between Echo’s thighs. Not Isabella. 

“Ah,” Fenris nodded, slowly. 

“Why aren’t you?” Hawke tossed back. 

“I…don’t know,” Fenris said, awkwardly. He shifted on his feet, his leather pants more restricting than normal before he turned on heel and marched out of the room. 

“Perverts!” Echo accused, loudly. 

“Yes, that would be us,” Hawke accepted the insult with grace. 

“This is going in one of my books,” Varric said, with a smirk. 

“No,” Echo said, her tone firm and fierce. “No, it’s no—ehhh!” Her backed arched slightly as the hot wax dipped into certain sensitive areas and she gave Isabella a glare while the pirate tried to look innocent, but the smirk on her painted red lips destroyed the image. 

“Is anyone else hot? It’s feeling a little…” Anders pulled at his collar, his cheeks pink, and his eyes traced Echo’s form as if he could not pull them away. Maker’s breath, he needed to get laid badly. He didn’t care if Justice said it was a waste of time. “Stuffy in here.” 

“Regretting those ridiculous fluffy and constricting mage robes now, aren’t you?” Varric sent him a knowing look. 

“Yes,” Anders said, shortly. 

“Can you get out?” Echo said, through gnashed teeth. She wasn’t ashamed of her body, but that didn’t exactly mean she wanted it on display for everyone. “Everyone! Out! Out! Out!” 

“Why is this even happening? In reality, I mean. I know why it happens in my dreams,” Hawke said, his voice deep and his throat bobbed. Perspiration dotted his upper lip, and his heart thumped like a beating drum. “But I mean now outside of my dreams? Not that I’m complaining about the view, but uh, things like this don’t normally happen to me in real life.” 

Varric snorted. 

“Stuff it,” Hawke snapped. 

“It…it isn’t what it looks like,” Echo defended, weakly. 

“Ah, Mockingbird, if you are going to make excuses, be original with them,” Varric told her, with mock disappointment. 

“It’s waxing,” Echo said, giving him a furious look. She went to close her legs, self-consciously, but Isabella pinched the underside of her thigh. She winced, and looked everywhere in the room except at people’s face. She was hoping that this was a drunken dream, and that it would be all over when she woke up. Part of her knew she wasn’t that lucky. “We are just waxing the hair…of our bodies. Isabella went first, and now me.” 

“Oh, the Dalish do that,” Merrill nodded, understandingly. “It keeps up from getting lice. We don’t do the hair on our heads unless absolutely necessary though. There was one year…well, that is probably not a story you want to hear, is it?” 

“No,” Echo said, flatly. She had blanched at the term, ‘lice’ and went a little green. She would rather be dropped in a vat full of spiders and snakes than ever have lice in her entire life. 

“That is a little more original, but why didn’t you bother to get dressed if you were done, Rivaini?” Varric laughed, looking up from the notebook he was scribbling in. He may end up regretting it at a later date, but this was pure gold, and his readers would get a kick out of it. 

“Why waste time putting on close when I could get down to business?” Isabella asked, and then pulled another strip causing Echo’s hips to buck and her face to scrunch up in pain. 

“I hate you,” Echo groaned. 

“But why are you waxing? The only women I know that wax are…” Hawke trailed off, a bit flustered before he recomposed himself. “Well, women who intend to do things.” 

“Intend to do things? Hawke, I’m afraid you are going to have to be more specific,” Isabella purred, gently wiping the remnants of the wax aware and smirked when Echo hissed, lightly. She knew she wouldn’t be able to seduce the elf into bed. Echo’s taste firmly laid with the male persuasion sadly, but Isabella was going to make sure she questioned her sexuality for a little while. 

“You know what I mean,” Hawke said, hotly. 

“Oh, do I? Come on, Hawke, if you have the balls to come into the room uninvited and stare luridly upon two naked women, surely one word shouldn’t strangle you,” Isabella said, with a salacious grin. 

“You all are impossible!” Echo gaped at them. 

“Fine,” Hawke said, through gritted teeth. “The only women I know that put themselves through this kind of torture are women who intend to have sex.” 

“Is that your roundabout way of asking if Echo going to go romping around with some wild stallion she finds on the Kirkwall streets?” Isabella chuckled, knowing very much that Hawke had feelings for the elf. 

Hawke demeanor was no longer joking in the slightest. Instead, his brows were drawn together and the pulse jumped in his clenched jaw. His eyes flickered back over Echo’s form, and he swallowed down the bitter bile that threatened to rush up this throat. He knew that she was woman, obviously. He had fought to keep himself from seeing her as such. She was under his protection, and his ward in every sense of the word. He did not want to take advantage of her. Yet she got underneath his skin. Her strange way that she approached the world with a held high, and with hope, even when things seemed to be turning out so dark. The way she always met him at the door when he’d come back home, and reassure herself that he was alright. The way she smiled melted the ice part of his heart frozen over for so long, and the thought of another man touching her, giving her pleasure that he had dreamed of doing put thoughts of murder inside of his head. 

“No, I’m not having sex with someone! I just got drunk and conned into this! That is all!” Echo growled, nudging Isabella’s knee with her foot. She knew what the pirate was doing. Echo had told Isabella about her feelings for Hawke, and now she was coming to wholeheartedly regret it. 

“If you aren’t going to have sex then why bother waxing?” Hawke persisted, frowning fiercely. 

“Oh, my God!” Echo grabbed a pillow, and shoved it over her face before she flopped back against the bed. She was going to die from mortification, but before she died, she was going to kill Isabella because the pirate had forgotten to lock the door. If Echo had known that laying back on the bed, causing her breast to thrust up, and her muscles to stretch with a pillow over her face muffling moans of embarrassment would have been an even more tantalizing sight, she would not have done it. She would have used the tiny pillow to shield her boobs or something, instead her red hot glowing face. Sadly, the men were too brain dead from the sight of naked woman—apparently she was the Maker’s gift to all of Hawke’s companions since all of them had now seen her naked—and she was going to die. In three, two, on—“Jiminy fucking Christmas!” Echo howled when Isabella pulled the first strip off, taking the hair along with it. Her body withered with the pain, and her back arched off the bed. 

“Oh, my, that looked painful,” Merrill commented, her green eyes intrigued by the sight. She gnawed on her lower lip, pulse thumping in her throat. She was feeling flustered, and rather excited by the sight. She may have to see if Dinal was still interested in a bit of passing time later this evening. “But it also looked she enjoyed it, too, withering around like that. The Keeper gives us salve to numb the areas we wax, so we don’t wiggle about like that.” 

“Then you have been missing out. Pain can be pleasurable if done right, kitten,” Isabella tossed Merrill a wink over her shoulder. 

“No pleasure. Just pain. Lots of pain,” Echo bemoaned, brokenly. 

“Oh, stopping being a baby,” Isabella tapped her thigh, gently. “We only have a two more then we can get dressed, and treat these fools a little bit about Wicked Grace. Think about it. They’ll be too embarrassed to look you in the face, and you’ll be able to steal all their gold.” 

“I can’t look at any of them in the face!” Echo replied, pressing the pillow tighter against her face. She was hoping to suffocate herself so that she never ever had to deal with the embarrassing fallout of this moment. “Why are you all just standing there? Get out!” 

* * *

In had been a few days since the “waxing incident” as Varric was calling. 

Hawke had been avoiding Echo since then, his emotions too up in the air for him to handle. He had this need to stay in control, under all circumstances, because a man without control was vulnerable. He had learned years ago what being vulnerable cost him, and it didn’t help that Echo tested him every single day. Her gentle laugh made him want to do anything to hear again, her perfect lips always in a smile and fueled too many fantasies to count. Everything she seemed to do make the emotions inside of him churn and grow, despite his best efforts to stifle them. The image of her naked body flashed through his mind over and over, and he wanted nothing more than to mark that ivory white flesh with bite marks and bruises in the shape of his fingertips. It hadn’t helped that Isabella put it in his head that Echo could very well have anyone she wanted, and some dark, ugly jealous part of him reared its head. So he tried to keep his distance, too afraid that he would succumb to his volatile emotions and do something he regretted. 

Needlessly to say, he failed. 

He had come home after working with Aveline to find the rumors about her being “soft” and “coddling” the guards; the source which was the former Captain of the Guard who now laid dead in Dark Town, his body would be a feast for rats or some desperate soul down there. And he walked into the kitchen, following the smell of food, only to find a sight that set his blood aflame. 

Echo leaning towards Anders, her different colored eyes alight with avid attention. Anders stood a little close—too close to her—and stated, mirthfully, “A man, an elf, and a dwarf walk into a bar. The man said to the dwarf, ‘You are lucky you are so short. That hurt like mad.’” 

Peels of laughter fell from Echo’s lips, and she snorted before she could help herself. She threw a hand over her smile, embarrassed by it and Anders beamed as if pleased by the revelation. “You snort when you laugh?” The mage chuckled, as Echo slapped at his arm. “That’s adorable.” 

“What is going on here?” Hawke said, his handsome mouth thinned and trembled while he fought back the violent urge that rose up in him like a caged beast snarling and biting at the bars that locked him up tight. The easy banter between Anders and Echo made him keenly aware of how empty his life had felt since he had been avoiding her, and it had only been a handful of days. The smile she gave Anders cut him like a blade, because that smile was his smile. The one she gave him, eyes glittering with mirth and laughter, and seeing her give it so freely to Anders made he want to strangle his fellow mage. “Where is Oriana?” 

“She is sick,” Echo explained, lightly. They had been tiptoeing around each other since the incident at the Hanged Man, and she had silently cursed Isabella for many times over. There had been a shift in their relationship. Hawke avoided her. All the times they would sit on the couch and talk had ceased to be. There were no little dinners for two in the kitchen because Hawke would eat up in his room, and the door was closed where it had once been always open. There were times she would get to eat with Bohdan, Sandal and Oriana, but due to their busy work day, they didn’t eat meals at specific times. But none of the idle chatter seemed to feel the void that was left in her life by Hawke. Echo had noticed his black moods, noticed that they would always stir when she was around, talking to the others and for the life of her, she was baffled by him. Did she do something wrong? Did he think less of her because of the waxing incident with Isabella? Why would he? It wasn’t like she had been doing anything wrong, and even if she had been, he wasn’t a paragon of virtue himself. Echo didn’t understand the distance he held her at, she felt like a knife to the gut. She agonized over it, and felt like a foolish love struck girl every time she worried about him and what was wrong with him. “She had most of the food, and such done ahead of time, so I am just finishing up, and Anders had come to see you, so he kept me company until you got back.” 

“Oh, yes,” Anders sprang up from his seat like a jack in the box, and scratched the back of his neck sheepishly. “I wanted to talk to you about the ingredients for my…special potion. We will need to travel to Dark Town for one that unfortunately grows in the sewers, while the other two can be found at the Bone Mines.” 

Hawke gave him a long suspicious look, but the two went to the library to talk further. Echo had brought them both a cup, before she disappeared into the kitchens. Hawke’s eyes lingered too long on her swaying hips, and he shook his head side to side. Despite his joking and haphazard nature, Hawke always prided himself on his self-control. All of that slipped out of the window with Echo, and he knew that he had to squash these emotions because otherwise they would destroy him. He could not watch her fall in love with another, not without it killing him. He popped open the very high quality spirit that Aveline had gotten him, and swallowed down glass after glass as he ironed out the details with Anders. He sat there drinking a couple of more after Anders had disappeared, and stared at the fire flickering in the fireplace. He mind replayed the scene he had walked in on of Anders and his corny joke, how she had leaned in towards him and how Echo had laughed as if it were the funniest thing in the world. That smile that was usually reserved for just him, and those lips made him think of who else she had been smiling for. Who else she had been possibly kissing. Who else she had been possibly loving. 

Emotions curdled in his blood, and he could feel his jealousy burn in his veins. The voice that said he was being unreasonable silenced by another swig of his drink, and it burned pleasantly all the way down to his stomach. He rose out of his chair, leaving his sobriety far behind him, and made his way to the kitchen. On the way there, his anger had lessened. His jealousy subsided in favor of the buzz that hummed in his mind, and he felt even better with another sip of his drink. 

“Is Anders staying for dinner?” Echo asked, innocently. 

Hawke could have punched the wall. He wished the first thing she had said hadn’t involved Anders, for it reignited the blacken anger in his heart, and all the progress on his control that he had gained while walking from the library into her vanished into thin air. “No, he left,” Hawke said, his voice caustic. 

Echo cast him a long silent and searching look. “Oh, I wouldn’t have minded if had decided to stay. It is always nice to have company for dinner, especially since I…” She cut off, looking down at the doe that she had been working on. _Have been eating alone,_ she finished in her mind, and the way Hawke’s brows drew downward, she might as well have said it out loud. Her heart clenched painfully tight in her chest, and she looked away from his, taking a deep breath. Once, she steadied herself mentally, she resumed her work. “It would have been nice is all.” 

Hawke had a cold, distant expression on his face. “Tell me, Echo, do you often entertain my friend’s while I am away?” He asked, the words pulled from his mouth before his common sense could stop them. In fact, his common sense seemed to have departed on a long, lovely vacation leaving him with worst half in charge of his facilities. 

Echo froze in kneading the doe with her hands, her heart felt like it had dropped out of her chest and into a vat of cold ice water. She looked up at him, eyes wide and wounded as that cold feeling seemed to slid through her veins, and there was something in his dark expression that made her swallow hard. Her eyes flickered down to the glass in his hand, and practically could smell the alcohol from here. “You are drunk, so I am going to pretend that you didn’t just say that,” she said, her tone light. Her jaw clenched tight, and her bottom lip quivered as she moved to continue with her task. “Go to bed, Hawke. It’s obvious that you need to go to sleep, and I’m not in the mood to put up with what existential crisis has turned you into a jackass tonight.” 

Hawke gave a huff of bitter amusement before he took another swing of his drink, and then he made his way towards her. Echo could hear her heart crack and crack with more and more with each footfall that he took towards her, feeling a cloud of doom swirling above her head. She valiantly tried to stay focused on making the bread, and to not feel the heat of his body when he came to a stop mere inched from her. _He is drunk. He doesn’t mean anything he will say_ , she told herself, trying to hold onto that excuse. It was a cheap excuse, but she didn’t want to believe that Hawke would ever be intentionally cruel to her. She didn’t want to believe that the same man who made her smile, and held her while she cried after the slaver incident with Isabella and Fenris, and had been her comfort and safe place would intentionally hurt and tear all of that down out misplace and petty jealous. 

“Isabella said that it took you two cups before you got drunk enough to agree to her little proposition,” Hawke said, his hot breath scalding against her sensitive ear. “Is that all it takes to get between your thighs?” 

Echo whirled around, slapping him so hard that his head snapped to the side. Her mismatched gaze glistened with angry tears, and she glared up at him like she hated him with the burning intensity of a thousand suns. “What is your problem?” Echo demanded, getting into Hawke’s face. “Why are you being such a jerk? How can say all those horrible things implying that…that I’m some cheap whore? What is _wrong_ with you?” 

Hawke didn’t know. Maker’s breath, he didn’t know. Every time he looked at her, this jealous—this senseless anger—welled up in his heart, and he realized how deeply he fallen. How she snuck into his life— _she didn’t exactly sneak_ , he mind reminded him, _you brought her right in_ —and stole his heart like she had a right to claim it. The thought that she could be out there, charming other men with her smile, loving someone other than him stole his senses, and made him feel like a raging monster that didn’t know what to lash out at. He had killed bandits, it hadn’t helped. He had trained with Aveline, much to her surprise, and it hadn’t helped. And now his sharp tongue hurt the object of his affections, and the anger was gone, replaced by a swift guilt. Echo did not owe him anything. She did not make promises to him. He had made no pledged to her, either. She was free to love, or share herself with anyone she damned well please, and she should be free to love. He had wanted to be the one to do that, to cherish the ground she walked on and worshipped her in the way that a man did for the woman he loved. He wanted to win her heart, and show her that he was earnest in his feelings. Instead, he had hurt her. He could see her broken heart written clearly in her eyes, and he _hated_ himself for it. 

He was never good with his emotions; not good at reading others, and not good with handling his own. He charged headfirst without thought to the messy aftermath that followed, but he had felt that he had chosen that path. He had control of his life, and that last time he had let others control the way he lived his life, it had left him in utter ruins. So he had learned to push people away, holding them at a safe distance, but there was no safe distance with Echo. So he lashed out, trying to send her fleeing from him to spare them both the agony of the inevitable crash. And he wished he hadn’t. He wished he could take it all back. He stepped forward, his hand reaching out towards her, and an apology trembling on the end of his tongue. 

But Echo stormed out before he could. 

* * *

It had been a month since then. 

Echo had gathered her things, and stole away in the night, going to Merrill’s place. Merrill was all too happy to have her stay over, the Dalish elf often lonely in her small little home, and was glad for the company. The days dragged one, monotone and hollow, and Echo hated that she missed Hawke. Hated that she still felt for him so strongly even after his harsh words, and wonder to herself what she had been trying to prove by running away. Did she want him to chase? To apologize and take it all back? He didn’t come after her, and no apology was made. So she didn’t know why she was standing here in Hightown on his doorstep, with worry and concern in her heart. 

It was Varric’s fault, the silver tongued devil. “He need you, Echo,” Varric had told her. “He’s been drowning in guilt over the way he treated you. I’ve never seen him like this before.” 

_Good,_ the vicious side of her thought, but that immediately gave way to a guilty pang in her heart. She knew that Hawke hadn’t meant those things. That there was _some_ reason behind it, it might have been a particularly good reason, but a reason nonetheless. And damn it, she needed to know that reason. She needed it in order to find peace of mind that had been lost to her, and to get closure on the whirling emotions inside of her. So she knocked on the door, and it opened. 

“Mistress Harper! You’ve returned,” Bohdan looked pleasantly surprised. 

“I…” Echo gnawed on her lower lip. “I just came to check on Hawke is all. Varric said he…he was not doing good.” 

“No, he has not,” a grim expression settled over the dwarf’s face. “He has been locked up in here for two weeks, and hasn’t left. He ignores all incoming letters, and the Templars even showed up here. Apparently the Knight-Commander expressed concern over him not meddling in Kirkwall’s affairs.” 

Echo’s heart gave a hard thump. “More like she was looking to see if he had become an abomination, and she had one less worry,” she said, with a bitter edge to her voice as she stepped through the threshold. The house was eerily still and dark. It was as if all the life and light had been torn out from it, leaving a decaying hollow shell behind. 

“That is probably true, sadly,” Bohdan sighed. “He is up in his room. I’m not sure he’ll let you in. He’s been rather ornery today more than he usually is.” 

Echo greeted Sandal, giving him a quick hug, before she walked up the stairs. Each step up there took all of her nerve, and she reached the top too soon. Hawke’s closed bedroom door loomed before her like some terrible foe, and her stomach twisted with anxiety. She lifted a trembling hand, and knocked. A short, sharp rap with her knuckles, and she could _feel_ Hawke’s attention turn towards the door from somewhere inside. 

Yet no reply came. 

Swallowing thickly, she knocked again. Her voice was too strangled for her to speak, and even if she did tell him who she was, would he even open? 

“Go away!” 

Echo sighed, heavily. Grabbing her lockpick, she knelt down working on the lock. It took her a couple of minutes, but finally the lock gave a satisfying click. Shoving the tool back in her pocket, she twisted the handle and walked into the room. She came to a halt at the sheer disaster area that was his bedroom. The canopy curtains of his bed, had been knocked askew and hung there awkwardly. His bed spread was sprawled across the floor and there were a least four empty wine bottles thrown about. As for Hawke himself, his fancy robe hung off him, haphazardly thrown on. She couldn’t see his face, his back was turned to her, but she could only imagine he looked like hell. 

“Varric, how many times have I told you not to pick the loc…” He whirled around, and stopped short at the sight of her. The hand wrapped around the bottle of alcohol trembled, and his eyes flared with some unnamed emotion. “You…no, you wouldn’t be here. Not after…” He stumbled backwards, his back hitting the wall when she took a step closer to him. 

“Varric told me that you were in bad shape,” Echo whispered out, her voice quaked. He looked like he had been put through hell, and it was obvious he hadn’t been taking very good care of himself. Dark circles hung in heavy bags underneath his eyes, and his cheeks looked a bit sunken in as if he had lost weight. “I knew that it would be…I just couldn’t…” Her words failed her. 

“Varric has a big mouth,” Hawke snapped, angry at the dwarf. But in truth, he was angrier at himself. His prized self-control tossed to the Void as guilt had consumed him, and the more the guilt consumed him, the more alcohol he had consumed to chase it away. “You shouldn’t be here. You shouldn’t see me like…” His eyes clenched closed tightly, and he slid down the wall. His bottom hit the ground with a thud, and Echo rushed to his side, worried he had just passed out. “You shouldn’t see me like this. I don’t want you to. Leave.” 

“God, Hawke, you smell like a brewery,” Echo grimaced, but she did not pull away. He looked so ragged, and disheveled. Blood smeared across his cheek from a recent fight most likely with himself than an actual opponent, and her heart clenched inside of her chest. “Oh, Hawke, why are you doing this to yourself?” 

He shook his head, refusing to tell her. “Just go, Echo. You are good at that.” 

Echo flinched, before her eyes narrowed at him. “You…you know why I left, Hawke. Don’t make it sound like I just…left without cause because we both know you gave me plenty,” she said, fighting not to give into the initial anger that burst in her heart. He was intentionally trying to drive her away. That much was clear, but she didn’t understand _why._ How did they go from being so close to being virtually strangers? “Please, Hawke, stop…stop trying to make me angry. Stop trying to get me to run away again. Just…just tell me what is wrong. I know there is a reason you are acting this way, and I wish you’d just tell me so I can help!” 

“Help?” He growled, and she looked into his eyes she noticed how the honey color was eclipsed by his pupils dilating. The tired look gone replaced with a flash of heat. “You want to _help_?” He repeated, his tone almost idle, but it makes her the goose pimples prickle along her flesh. Before she could even react, his arms wrapped around her and crushed her to his chest. His face dipped downward, his mouth claimed hers in a fierce, white-hot branding kiss. 

Echo felt like the universe had turned upside down. Oh, how long she had fantasized about his kiss, and his touch. This wasn’t how she wanted it—not that she ever imagined Hawke kissing her would become reality—but the sensation washing over, stealing her senses. A low moan rumbled through her throat, and Hawke deepened the kiss. Her entire body felt like a lit match set upon gasoline, and she was consumed by flames. When Hawke pulled her into his lap with her straddling his hips, and it was impossible to miss the hard erection pressing intimately against her. It shocked her back into reality, and she pulled herself roughly from his arms. Her bottom slammed into the hard marble floor, and she stared at Hawke with a wide-eyed gaze, her breaths coming in short, sawing inhales. 

“Echo,” Hawke reached up, pressing his hand to his forehead. He shook his head side to side, and his Adam’s apple bobbed downward. “Echo, I’m so sorry. That,” he stopped, at a loss for words. 

Echo opened her mouth, but her lips trembled. Her thoughts scattered, pulse racing at the base of her throat, and she ran her fingers through her hair. “Why?” She asked, and she hated that her voice sounded so broken. “Why would you…” 

“Why would I kiss you?” Hawke said, and then gave a soft, hollow laugh. “Because I wanted to. I’ve wanted to kiss you for a while now.” 

Echo was floored. _“Why?”_ She scrambled to her feet, and stared at him like one might look at a snake about to bite them. She didn’t know what to do with Hawke’s admission. She never imagined that he could possibly have wanted her as she wanted him. She felt like a boat without a paddle, floundering and getting swept away by an impossibly fast current. 

“Fuck, Echo, do you really have to ask that question?” Hawke shoved himself off the floor, and followed after her. His arm grabbed her wrist, and pulled her back towards him not allowing her to run away again. He had been a fool before allowing his anger to guide him when he should have come clean about how he felt. “You are so…maddening, frustrating, and I never imagined when I found you in that tomb what you would come to mean to me. You see me when I am just a man. Not a champion or leader. I can be that with you. Just a man, made of flesh and blood, and you…” Hawke breathed out, raking a hand down his jaw. “You make me feel vulnerable in the worst way, in the best way. I didn’t know how to handle that…” 

“That is why you’ve been such an ass?” Echo nearly shrieked. 

Hawke winced. “Yes.” 

Echo stood there for a moment, gaping unattractively like a fish. She swayed on her feet, part of wanting to fling herself in his arms, but the other part too proud to forgive him so easily. “The things you said,” she said, woodenly. 

“I know,” Hawke said, with true regret shining in his eyes. “Jealousy brings the worst out in me I’m afraid. The alcohol doesn’t help much, either.” 

She closed her eyes, feeling the heat of oncoming tears. She trembled from head to toe, a raspy breath drawn into her quivering pink lips. Her hand was pressed against her chest, as if trying to stem the blood flow from an open wound because her heart _hurt_ so much right now. She had never felt so completely torn. As if sensing her internal struggle, Hawke gently lifted her captured hand to his mouth, pressing a kiss against her wrist. Then another against the flesh of her palm, before he turned her hand over and laid one on her knuckles. “Hawke, I…” 

Hawke slowly sank down to his knees in front of her. “I’ll grovel. I’ll beg. I allowed my pride and jealousy rule me once, and it sent you away from me,” he whispered, pressing a kiss against her hip before his fingers teased the hem of her tunic. When all she did was shudder, he lifted it carefully and his lips pressed a wet kiss on her stomach. His teeth then nipped at her the flesh near her belly button causing her hips to jerk sharply, and his hands caught them to steady her. “I cannot promise I will be without faults, and that I won’t make mistakes, but I can promise you that I will be a better man. A better man, a man that deserves to love you, if you will let me. Just tell me you will stay, and let me.” 

Her hands gripped the fabric of his shirt at his shoulders, and she felt heart stuttered against her ribcage. Tears trickled down her cheeks, Echo didn’t know if she could promise that. His words had shattered that fragile trust that she had given him, and he had managed to break her heart—something she swore she’d never let anyone close enough to do. And yet, something in her softened. Something that told her to forgive, and forge onward, that it would be worth it to let Hawke have another chance and this time she wouldn’t regret it. 

“Please,” he buried his face into her stomach, and she could feel the wetness of tears that he could not shed. He was too jaded, and too prideful to break down and weep. Yet he was not too prideful to get on his knees, and beg her forgiveness. It was a powerful declaration that words could not justify. “Please stay.” 

“I’ll…” Echo swallowed, shakily. “I’ll stay.” 

* * *


	4. Complicated

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Want to give a shout to Kohanita, Catann, nessakusterbeck, UsakoAuditore, brickholtz, KittyDragoness, melgonzo, eluria, QualityRachni, Hexpixie, 13_Ravens, and 0102and03 and the 5 guests who left kudos on this work. Thank you! :D

CHAPTER FOUR 

“Complicated”

Catherine should have stopped him. Pushed him away, because doing this with him of all people would just make things more complicated, but the smell of his caressed her, making her fall plaint against him. Cullen’s fingers slid her robe from off of her shoulders, and it fell silently to the ground. His fingertips brushed against her skin in a feather light touch. He ran the down the column of her neck across her collarbone to her breast, avoiding her nipples purposefully and the cold air made goosebumps appear along her dark, brown skin. Suddenly, and without warning, he took her by her shoulder and bent her over the arm of the couch. She squealed in surprise but that squeal turned into a heady moan when his fingers probed between her legs. 

“So wet for me already,” Cullen whispered, in reverence. He reveled in the stark contrast between them; of his light skin against her darker skin, the softness of her body against the hardness of his. Was it any wonder that he wanted this woman so? Her beauty—inside and out—drew him like a moth to the flame, and he was already fallen for her once. Back when things were simple, back when nothing stood in their way. Now things were different. So much stood against then, but what was one more time? What was one more fall? 

“I’m always wet for you,” she whispered out. 

Cullen almost came from that sentence alone. He lifted her torso up so he could press her against his naked body, and his large had splayed across her abdomen while hot mouth worked on her neck. She leaned back against him, and let out a gentle sigh, feeling like she could have stayed like this forever. His nails dragged across her ribs, in the most tantalizing way before he cupped her large breast and brushed his thumb across her nipple. _The best dark chocolate. I bet they taste just as delicious,_ he had teased her the first time they had sex back when they were teenagers, and he remembered the pretty blush on her face as he suckled them. 

He couldn’t wait to get his lips on them. She was so responsive, and he flicked her nipple with the edge of nail and watched her breath hitch in her throat. “Maker’s Breath,” he swore into her ear, “do you know what you do to me, Catherine?” 

A small smirk edged on her supple lips. “Oh, believe me I can feel exactly what I do to you,” she said, wiggling against the long, hard erection that was nestled between her swell of her buttocks. He was impossibly large, and could have made a helluva a living as a porn star. Seriously, he had been given the nickname, Cullen ‘My Dick is So Big It’s a Choking Hazard’ Rutherford during their high school days when he had lost his swimming trunks in the pool after diving from the high board. 

He slid his hand from her breast to the crease of her mound, and slid a finger between the wet lips there. She gasped and withered in his grasp. “How far will you let me take you?” Cullen wondered, feeling a dark lust burning in his veins. He pressed a finger inside of her pussy, thrusting it in deep causing her to arch her back and stand on her tippy toes because she was already so close to the edge. “I’ve had you here,” he pulled the finger free from her, and smirked at the low moan of disappointment she gave. He brought the finger up to her mouth, and rubbed her juices over her lips, coating them. “And I’ve had you here.” 

Catherine moaned as he slid the digit into her mouth. She had never been a fan of the way she tasted, but the taste of her arousal combined with flavor of his skin was something different. Something that made her stomach clench and quiver, and she nearly made her cream. She let out a gasp around the finger as his other hand slid down to her supple backside, and pressed between the cheeks of her ass to the secret entrance hidden there. “Oh, Maker.” 

“Would you let me have you here? Would let me do that to you?” He worked his finger right inside of the opening, and felt how warm and tight she was there. She was a virgin to such things, and he wanted to do this for her. He wanted to know that he had been all her firsts, even if he didn’t get to be her lasts. “How far, Catherine, do you trust me?” 

Catherine wanted him. Wanted him pressed against her for all time, the two of them entwined like lovers forever, and nothing could tear them apart. “Yes,” she whispered, her voice filled with certain. “Yes, Cullen. Please take me there.” 

His body shuddered against hers, and his hands reached down, palming her ass. He loved her body, so much soft flesh. Her thick substantial curves had given him fantasies to last for years after they had been apart, and if he could, he would never let her wear clothes again while she was inside this house. He pushed her back down, folding her over the arm over the couch in a comfortable position for her, and it allowed him the loveliest view of her full ass. “Stay here. I’ll be back,” he told her, and left the living room to go get the lube and condoms out of his bedroom. 

Catherine didn’t move. Anticipation pounded through her blood, and her fingers gripped the edge of the couch. Her teeth sank into her bottom lip, and she jolted when she felt his knee push between her thighs, shoving them apart. She hadn’t even heard him return, and then she felt him press two fingers against the trimmed curls of her pussy before he sank them deep. “Oh,” she moaned, wiggling her hips as he thrust his fingers in a merciless rhythm. Her tits pressed against the soft plush fabric, and she rubbed herself against it like a cat. Her slick walls started to clamp down upon his thick digits, but he pulled them free before she reached her release. 

He slid the fingers along her anus, playing with the rim before he started to work one inside of her, using her own slick to ease the way for his fingers. He had to use the lube for his dick though, and he would have to be gentle. He didn’t want to hurt her. He wanted to give her pleasure, to unlock that passion that only he got to see within her, and he pumped it in and out until he could get two fingers into her tight hole. 

She let out a mixture of a groan and whimper, pressing back against him. The burning stretch was different, but not unpleasantly slow. Nerve endings she had never even known were set aflame as Cullen stretched her open, and her pussy was practically flooding with arousal. She needed more. She wanted more. And he gave her more, with methodical and careful movements that drove her to dangling over the edge of bliss, but not enough to send her spiraling over. He didn’t stop until he had all four fingers buried deep in her backside, eased into her with a generous mixture of lube and slick. Catherine thought she was going to die from the sheer sensations that it evoked inside of her. “Cullen, please, I need you. I need you,” Catherine gasped, her sharp nails biting into the palms of her hands. 

“Fuck,” Cullen hissed, dragging his fingers free from her to rip the condom out of the foil and roll it over him. 

Catherine’s body shuddered, her back entrance felt empty and hollow. It didn’t last long because she felt the tip of his manhood coated in the room temperature lube, and he ran his palm down the length of her spine. “Relax, sweetheart,” he told her, gently. “Push out as I push in.” 

Catherine bit the inside of her cheek, but did as he asked. Once she was plaint, she felt him press into her and she had been nearly undone by his fingers, but this was so much _more_. Inch by inch, he slowly conquered her halting only when her body would tense and pushed onward when she was ready for more. “Oh, Cullen, I’ve never felt…” she struggled to speak, her entire body quaking as he dominated her in the most primal way. “So stretched…so deep…” 

His fingers tangled in her curly locks while his balls pressed against the wetness of her pussy, she had taken every single inch of him like she had been fucking made for just him, and it felt like every nerve in his body was on fire. If she moved one inch, it would be all over for him. “You alright, Catherine? Nothing hurts?” Cullen asked, because it would kill himself if he accidentally hurt her. 

Her body trembled, but there was no pain. The pain had been eased with his attentiveness to being gentle with her, and all that was left was this mind blowing sensation that she had no idea could even exist. “It feels…so wonderful. I never knew…” She whimpered, and he bent over her to press kissing against the back of her throat. “Cullen, please. Please fuck me.” 

“As you wish,” Cullen promised, with a sharp nip at the lobe of her ear. He grasped her lovely hips in a vice grip, and being an easy rocking rhythm. Her entire body when taunt from head to toe, and her head craned back, with her expression twisted in pleasure. He held them rhythm steady until it became easier to move in and out of her, and he finally sped up. The slap of skin against skin only added the headiness of the act they were committing and he slide deeper, harder with each new thrust. He was on the edge, could feel his climax rushing towards him as his balls tightened, and he needed her to come with him. 

Catherine could feel him so deeply inside of her, and knew that no one would ever be able to steal the claim he imprinted upon her. Her body was thrust towards the peak, and she was hanging onto sanity by the skin of her teeth when he wedge his hand between her pelvis and the arm of the couch so he could stroke her throbbing clit that had been tortured by his balls slapping against it. When his finger ran in circles around her sensitive bud, it had been the trigger that threw her off the edge of the steep cliff into an abyss of a sensual and erotic orgasm that left her mindless. Her legs stretched out, and shook from the tension in her body, and her chest heaved with pants as she flailed, overwhelmed with what was happening to her. 

She screamed his name so loud that it echoed off the walls, and the convulsion of her body caused her muscles to clamped down on him, causing liquid head to spill from his swollen cock. Pleasure so intense—like nothing he had ever felt before—raced through him, as he held himself flush against her as she held him tightly inside of her. When it finally passed, he collapsed over her, still lodged deep inside of her and Cullen had no desire to pull himself free. There was no place in the world he would rather be, and he knew that there was no way that he could go back to just being Catherine’s friend. He needed her too much to walk away, but there were complications. 

So many complications. 

Tomorrow Catherine was to be married. 

And it wasn’t to him. 

* * *


	5. Obsession

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summary: Mordred, son of Flemeth, is forced to go along with the Grey Wardens. He finds himself drawn to Ashlinn Cousland, ever since they first met, but his affections go unrequited. By on the eve of battle, he approaches her—never letting her know of his plans for the ritual that will spare her life, and bind them through a child.  
> Tags: Male! Morrigan, Dark Ritual Au, Reluctance, Magical Seduction  
> Thank you FirstFanGrrl for adding me to your bookmarks!  
> Thank you Ms_Saboteur, Kohanita, Catann, nessakusterbeck, UsakoAuditore, brickholtz, KittyDragoness, melgonzo, eluria, QualityRachni, Hexpixie, 13_Ravens, 0102and03 and the 8 guests that left kudos on my work!  
> Thank you 0102and03 for the comment!

CHAPTER FIVE 

“Obsession”

If he ever gets the chance, he’ll thank Alistair for his blunder. 

Him leaving the Landsmeet—and his lady love Ashlinn Cousland—in the wake of the decision to spare Lohgain and make him a Grey Warden. This decision allowed for Mordred to swoop in and claim what he had carelessly discarded in a moment of anger, and Alistair’s pride did not allow him to return. All the better because by the time that Alistair’s calm side prevailed, Ashlinn’s life would irrevocably tethered to Mordred’s forever. 

Flemeth had never wanted a son. She made him painfully aware of that through the entirety of his childhood, but she still taught him to survive and helped his magic to thrive. She taught him to not wish for pretty baubles, or fleeting things like love. And what he felt for Ashlinn was not love. It was dark and possessive and burned deep into the marrow of his bones. Ever since he laid eyes on her in the wilds, he had been intrigued by the strong and steadfast woman. She further entranced him the way she treated him, like he was any other man, not some mage of the wilds that horror stories were made up of. 

He had been pleased when his mother had allowed him to journey with the Grey Wardens. He was significantly less pleased with the budding relationship between Ashlinn and Alistair. He held great contempt for the buffoon, but the woman would not be swayed away from the former templar. Her unique view point on life and survival, how she could be compassion, just yet ruthless and harsh when needed endeared her further to Mordred. She literally was changing the world with each step she took, and not once did she allow the power to go to her head. Such a strange contradiction she was. 

She treated him as a friend—even claimed him as such—but it was not enough. Not nearly enough for Mordred. He grinded his teeth as he endured watching her and Alistair from afar. The gentle kisses, proclamation of love, and the first night spent in the tent. After Flemeth had been disposed—the spell said a daughter was needed, but he would not take a chance for he was Flemeth’s only child in reach—he had been planning for the Dark Ritual. He knew that Alistair would hate it, but the man loved Ashlinn too much. He would agree to letting Mordred lay with her, and give her a child if meant sparing them both from death. Part of Mordred anticipated Alistair’s pain at having to watch Ashlinn swell with his child, and bear that for nine months. Mordred’s intention was to take the child—a fight it would come down to—but now his plans had shifted. 

Ashlinn’s heart was broken. Alistair nowhere in sight. 

Mordred could claim the woman that he wanted, and _keep_ her. Ashlinn would fight it, at first. She would always fight, it was just who she was, but he knew that on some level that Ashlinn was aware of him as a man. A fact that he had played on for the last several weeks as allies gathered and they prepared to mount the finally attack on the darkspawn. Not many knew this fact by Mordred was a Fadewalker, and able to control his dreams. He could also enter the dreams of others, and Mordred entered Ashlinn’s. He would paint a picture of seduction. Of satin sheets, flickering candles, heated flesh pressed against heated flesh as he would skillfully play Ashlinn’s body like a harpist plucked the strings of a harp. He drove her mad with pleasure, sometimes satisfying her over and over again while other times she denied her release. 

The mornings after these dreams, Ashlinn couldn’t look him in the eye without a blush. 

Perhaps it wasn’t nice of him to use his abilities on her, but he had never claimed to be a nice man. 

Now…on the eve of battle it would see if his plans paid off. 

* * *

Ashlinn was soaking in the copper tub in her room, the water was lukewarm by now, but she stayed within it. Her body slowly slid down until her head was beneath the water, and she screamed out, and only bubbles escaped her mouth. Her screams went unheard, but she could feel the raw scrap of them against her throat. 

It was her fault. 

It had been her choice that drove him away. 

But he would live. He would live, and she would die enduring his hate. 

Riodan had told her about the sacrifice a Grey Warden to slay an archdemon before the Landsmeet, and when he presented the choice to her, her heart splintered in her chest. She knew it would drive him from her. She knew that look of adoration and love would be replaced with disgust and revulsion. She had betrayed him in deciding to make Lohgain a Grey Warden, but he would be far away from the final battle. Far away from death that could destroy him, and for that she was willing to pay any price. 

Even that of her own heart. As soon as her lung shrieked for air, Ashlinn pulled herself back above the water’s surface and ran her fingers up across her face, pulling her matted hair out of the way. She caught movement out of the corner of her eye, and her head whirled towards Mordred that was drawing some kind of rune upon the door. “What…what in the void do you think you are doing in my room?” She demanded, hotly. 

“I come with an offer I think that you will like to hear,” Mordred said, with a slow smirk. 

“Then perhaps you can wait until after I am done bathing, and decent?” Ashlinn said, with a scowl. 

“But having you naked is an advantage. Without clothing, without armor, we are mere flesh. There is no rank, no superiority, only vulnerability,” Mordred stated, matter-of-factly. 

“And you want me vulnerable to you?” Ashlinn said, with a narrowed eyed look. She trusted Mordred. Despite his callous attitude, Ashlinn counted him as a loyal friend, but there something in his gaze tonight that sent a prickle of alarm across her scalp. Gritting her teeth together, she rose out of the bathtub without a lick of shame. She may have been a noble woman—most who would either eagerly enjoy a man in their bedchamber or fluster upon the sight of him—but she is not wilting flower. He thought that without her armor she was vulnerable, she would prove him wrong. “What exactly is this offer that has you so boldly entering my room?” 

Mordred watched riveted as she grabbed a towel, turning her back to him and drying off. If anyone was bold it was her, and to be honest, he had not thought she would rise up out of the tub like that. Revealing her body to him, the subtle curves and pale pink nipples, the groomed hair at the apex of her thighs. He supposed she was beyond caring about such things now. Death loomed on the horizons, her love gone off into the sunset without her, why would she care for such mundane things as modesty now? “The archdemon can only be killed by a Grey Warden,” he said, walking the beads of water roll down her back. His tongue trembled in his mouth, wanting nothing more than to dip into the delicate curve of her spine and lick it all up like a man dying of thirst. 

“Riodan told me. I’m aware of the sacrifice that he, Lohgain, or I will have to make,” Ashlinn said, shortly. She grabbed her small clothes from atop the dresser, and slipped them up along her legs and over her hips. 

“There is another way,” Mordred told her. 

She went utterly still, as if every muscle in her body had been turned into stone. “What do you mean? There is another way?” Her voice was suspiciously light, and there was a hint of something in there. A helpless kind of pain, and disbelief. 

“A dark ritual that would spare the Grey Warden’s soul when the archdemon is slain. The ritual…is personal in nature. Requires a carnal intimacy between the caster and a Grey Warden,” Mordred stated, waiting for her to absorb the words. 

“You mean…” 

“Sex,” Mordred finished her thought. 

Ashlinn’s brows pinched together. “And…this ritual? How long have you know about it?” She asked, carefully. 

Mordred’s lips thinned out. “I have known for quite some time.” 

“Quite some time? Since before the landsmeet?” Ashlinn turned towards him. Her expression was flat, and her pulse thumped in her jaw. The tunic bunched into her right fist, and she took a step towards him. 

Mordred considered denying, but she would see through it. “Yes.” 

Outrage sparked across her face, and her chest heaved with a great breath. “Why did you not tell us before then? Why did you not say anything? Alistair and I would have…” Her voice shattered, and tears burst to life in her eyes—Mordred ignored the pang of guilt he felt at the sight of them—and she shook her head side to side. “I wouldn’t have spared Lohgain, if I had known there had been another way.” 

“Do not delude yourself, Ashlinn. Your Templar would have never agreed to such an arrangement. Do you think he would so happily agree to you parting your thighs for me? An apostate who he despises with every inch of his soul?” Mordred told her, coldly. He knew his words weren't true, that Alistair would have agreed to save Ashlinn if he had known the price that the slaying the archdemon came with. But Alistair's ignorance had served Mordred well, in more ways than one. His hands came to rest on her shoulders, tight and uncompromising in their grip. 

“We would have made that decision. We would have worked through it. We have come so far, and we would have been willing to go through anything if it meant we would be together at the end of it,” Ashlinn’s voice broke, tears rolling down her cheek. “I loved him!” 

“And look what he did with that love?” Mordred countered, sharply. His hands tightened on her naked shoulders, and he pulled her so close that their noses touched. “He tossed it away without thinking about the consequences. Without looking back. Do you still consider him so worthy of your love?” 

Ashlinn glared at him, her gaze blistering in its intensity. “What do you know of love, Mordred? It is a weakness to you, and that’s all you deem to see it as. You can never appreciate what kind of strength love can create, even if it leads to heartbreak,” she told him, her tone clipped. Her nails bit into his wrists hard enough to draw blood, but Mordred’s grip did not falter in the slightest. “Why offer me this? Why offer it now? I’ve made my peace with death, and I will go gladly to it. The thing that I care about is far out of harm’s reach. What do I care for my life as long as it stops the blight?” 

“You may have made you peace with your death,” Mordred hissed, his hot breath fanning across her lips. He could not offer her words of reassure or of love, but those were as close as a jaded person like him could create. “But I have not.” 

And with that, Mordred hauled her against him. His lips claimed possess of hers, and one arm wrapped around her back pinning her to his chest while the other tangled into her hair, tilting her head back to his give him better access to her mouth. She had gasped in shock at the kiss, and his tongue took advantage sweeping deep to taste every inch of her. Hands smacked at his shoulders, and in retaliation he sent a jolt of magic into her body, purposefully directing it to her clit and nipples. She withered with a moan of protest and pleasure, and he sent one more bout of magic through her before he released her. She stumbled back away from him on unsteady limbs. 

“Why did…?” Ashlinn’s expression looked helpless and confused. Her fingers reached up to touch her lips, and she shook her head lightly. 

“Because the spell requires intimacy on a physical and spiritual level,” Modred said, his voice breathless. His green eyes took in how her lips were red and swollen from his kiss, and his desire grew hotter in his veins. “I have desired you for quite some time, so this spell is no hardship to do. Not for you.” 

Ashlinn’s cheeked turned red. “You desired…me?” 

Mordred gave her a slightly mocking smile. “Don’t play the fool. Your eyes are too sharp to miss such details, no matter how well I’ve hidden it,” the mage told her, with a low, dark chuckle. 

Ashlinn looked away from him, flustered. She had known that Mordred’s eyes lingered on her too long, but she figured herself nothing more than a curiosity to him. He had told her in conversation that he did not understand the need of touch, so she never assumed he was interested in such. Now she replayed all her interactions with him in her mind. Little details that she missed before now flared white hot in her mind’s eye. She took another step back, until her legs hit the back of the bed. Stumbling, she fell back onto her bottom sinking into the mattress. “The dreams were you, weren’t they? It was always you.” 

“So what if it was? Did you not deserve some solace after the Landsmeet?” Mordred countered. 

“You didn’t do it solely for my solace, Mordred.” 

“No, but in part.” Mordred didn’t waste a second crossing towards her. He knelt down between her knees, and laid one hand on her thigh to keep her from scooting backwards. “Just say yes, Ashlinn,” Mordred whispered out, his throat bobbed. He would not plead. He would not beg. 

“Your mother could have lied. The spell could be wrong,” she pointed out, with a trembling jaw. 

“Then you are no worse than where you are now. Besides, you have given so much of yourself to this world. Giving so much to your companions, to Alistair, and you take a moment for yourself,” Mordred breathed out, leaning forward to press a light kiss to her stomach. An observer would have called the action almost tender. “Why not take something in return? Why not take this moment for yourself no matter where the future might lead?” 

Ashlinn opened her mouth, her coming up to rest upon his shoulder. Her palm trembled against his heated skin—his tattered tunic was never much of an armor—and her common sense rallied to tell her to send him away. To see him out the door, and send him far away from her. Her common sense was silenced by the despair that rolled up within her. She had lost so much, had given up so much, was it so wrong to seek comfort of flesh with someone else? What more did she have really to lose? If Mordred’s ritual worked, Alistair would likely never come back to her and a Grey Warden couldn’t have rank so she could never really return back to Highever. If Mordred’s ritual didn’t work, then she would be most likely be dead. 

Why not have one night just to herself? 

Slowly, she cupped his face in between her hands and stared at his face. He was handsome, and utter contrast to Alistair—a fact for which she was thankfully. His alabaster skin, the sharp plains of his face, and his hair was as dark as the moonless night. He was her friend, and he offered her this, even if he did have his own motivations that she wasn’t entirely sure of, but that didn’t stop her from leaning downward, pressing her lips against his. It was a slow gentle kiss, one that she knew took him by surprise, and her hands slid downward working his tunic loose from where the hem had been tucked into his tight leather pants. 

He released her long enough to dispatch his tunic, but his hands did not sit idle, grabbing each side of her small clothing and she lifted her hips allowing him to pull them down her legs. As soon as the article of clothing down around her ankles, one hand was buried between her thighs and the other grasping her breast, thumb massaging the tip of her nipples. A choked moan slid out of Ashlinn mouth, and her head tilted backwards as her hips jerked against the questing hand. 

“Spread them,” Mordred ordered, his voice thick with lust. 

Ashlinn swallowed, thickly. Part of her wanted to abandoned this, but the other part told her that she had already passed the point of no return. With a shaky breath, she scooted her thighs further apart granting him better access to her sex, and she hissed through clenched teeth when his fingers began to circle her clit. “Ohh,” she whimpered, the slow burn of arousal growing hotter in her veins. An needy ache pulsed through her thighs, and was building with each tight circle he did around her clit. 

Mordred lifted his hand, catching her right nipple between his teeth and sucked it into his hot mouth. She tasted heavenly like milk and honey, so divine that he knew it would haunt him for the rest of his life. He watched the pupils of her eyes dilated, and her hands reached out, running her fingers down the back of his neck. She was treating him like a lover, and she shouldn’t. He did care for her, but he was using her and he didn’t deserve any affection she gave him. 

But he was a selfish bastard. He would soak up every touch, every kiss, every inch that she gave him to keep the memory and pretend for a second that it was he that she loved, not Alistair. He growled, shoving the fool’s name from his mind and he intended to drive it out of Ashlinn’s by the time the night was through. He slid his finger deep into her sheath, and watched her lips part with a gasp. A beautiful blush pooled across her creamy skin, and she trembled for him. 

He was the one that was doing this to her, making the fearless leader lose control, and that made him feel powerful. After a few pumps, he added a second finger and when he certain that she would not be hurt, he start thrusting them into her with a ruthless and steady rhythm. Her entire body jerked, startled by the suddenly change from the gentle and slow foreplay into the brutal and swift pace that he set. “Mordred,” his name fell from her lips, her voice breathless and strained as her hips almost helpless jerked against him. 

Ashlinn’s back fell back against the bed as Mordred urged her backwards, his fingers still plunging deep into her and then he curled them with a pulse of electricity poured straight into her clit from his thumb. She came against him with a soundless scream, her back arching off the bed and his mouth slammed down onto hers. He groaned at the feel of her inner muscles clamping down on his fingers, and his stiff manhood throbbed in the confines of his trousers. The urge to strip them, and bury himself deep into her slick, wet heat was almost unbearable. 

But not yet. Not until he had his fill of her, and he intended to have his fill. 

“Are you…are you going to…” Ashlinn wasn’t sure what to ask as she slowly came down from her high. Her heart and body were torn right now. Her heart was firmly Alistair’s, but her body was more than happy with Mordred right now. She didn’t know what to expect from Mordred though. Alistair was a through lover, making sure she was taken care over and over before he would take any pleasure for himself. But Alistair loved her. Mordred didn’t. To Mordred this could be nothing more than a transaction between her and him to be swiftly dealt with as possible. 

“Patience,” Mordred said, licking her slick from his fingers. “I would not have this night over soon. I intend to have you as many ways as I can, and screaming from the pleasure I wring from your body.” 

Ashlinn bit her lower lip, watching him leave kisses and bites down her chest and stomach until his face hovered over her sex. His mouth descended upon her—hungry and ravenous—and he tossed her legs over his shoulders creating the most delicious angle as his tongue penetrated her heat then pulled out to lap at her clit. “Uhhh…” the noise was pulled from the depths of her throat, and her hands fisted into his hair holding onto for dear life as he drove her towards the edge. It took precious little for him to push her to her climax, and she panted as she convulsed against his mouth. 

She expected him to get up off of her after that, but he didn’t. Instead, he continued to feast upon her like a man charged into battle, without restraint and she felt a fissure of molten heat run up the length of her spine as her body shook. “Mordred, what are you…Mordred!” She called out his names as his teeth skimmed across her clit. He was unrelenting, and had her pleading until she came for a third time upon his tongue. He lifted his head with a smug smirk affixed on his face, and attempt to crawl onto the bed after her when Ashlinn swiftly shoved him over onto his back. 

As she unlaced his trousers, his smirk grew. “And what do you—” 

“Shut up,” she ordered, her voice rough with lust. She released his erection from the confines of his pants, and stroked him with her hand from tip to base then back again. Her lips curled upward at the sharp hiss he gave, and the way his hips bucked into her hand seeking her favor. Lazily she stroked him two more times before leaned down, and took his cock into her mouth suckling it. He cursed, his hand brushed her hair out of the way so he could see her pink lips wrap around his cock. He had fantasized about those lips, but his fantasies had been nothing compared to this. 

She hollowed her cheeks, and took him deeper into her throat. So deep that he almost came just from the sight of it, and she pulled back, bobbing her head rapidly as she sucked him off. His body went taunt like a bow string and he could felt the spear of pleasure stab into his spine, vibrating through him straight to his balls. He would not last much longer, and he pulled her off of him roughly. “Enough,” he growled, his green eyes with golden flecks practically glowing in the dark. 

He grabbed her and shoved her across the bed on her belly before he shoved his legging off and draped himself across her, effectively pinned her down. His knees shoved her legs apart and his hand aligned his cock with her hot entrance. He wanted nothing more than to bury himself deep, but he waited. One hand braced upon her shoulder, and he breathed out, “Tell me you want this.” 

Ashlinn shuddered beneath him, a long silence moment stretched between them before she nodded her head. “Yes. Yes, I want this.” 

“Ashlinn…” He whispered out her name like a prayer, the only litany that would ever grace his lips, and then plunged himself deep into her. He had never felt anything like this in his entire life to be so connected to her, to thrust into her until the separation between them disappeared into the spiraling pleasure that burned between. The white intensity burned out the rest of the world—what laid before this moment, and what would come afterwards—and it was just them together as one. Her voice rang out with ecstasy that bordered on pain as her body was sent over the edge by his furious thrust and a jolt of magic that squeezed her overstimulated clitoris. Her pleasure was his undoing and a shout rang out across the room as he came, spilling his seeds into the depths of her womb, her heat milking his shaft for every last drop. 

As the fire from the hearth dimmed, Ashlinn long fell asleep exhausted by the strenuous activity, and Mordred cradled her to his side, his finger skimming across her toned stomach. A small knowing smile crossed his lips, and he pressed a kiss to her temple. Ashlinn murmured sleepily, but did not stir. 

* * *

Ashlinn was in a bit of a pickle. 

She known it as soon as the dust settled, and Mordred was nowhere in sight after the battle. Even though she was not a mage, she had _felt_ the surge of power enter her body and settled straight into her womb. She knew that there had been more to the ritual last night that Mordred had left out that night. Particularly the part about the old god baby she was currently carrying. She didn’t know how she knew that it was an old god soul that had been absorbed inside of her, but she felt this knowledge press into her mind. She had been terrified, and she could not tell a soul in fear of judgment or worse Templars being called upon her. 

Part of her wished on the slim chance that it was Alistair’s, but she knew that it was unlikely. Four months had passed since the final battle, and she was being heralded as a hero. The title the Hero of Ferelden was a bitter one to swallow, and she wondered if they still called her that after she abandoned her Grey Warden duties. As soon as Wynne confirmed that she was indeed pregnant, Ashlinn started planning. She explained to Fergus that she had to be travelling, and while she wished she could have gone back to Highever with her brother, it would be the first place that Wardens would look. 

Zervan had stayed with her for a little while. Up until the crows got too close for comfort. While the crows respected Ashlinn enough, Zervan’s life was still forfeit. He left to spare her the danger of being too close to him. Leliana had been approached by the Divine, and Ashlinn encouraged her to follow this path. Wynne and Shale were travelling, looking for a way for Shale to be dwarf again. Sten had left to go inform the Arishok of what occurred in the Blight, with Asala firmly upon his back. Lohgain had went to Amaranthine to organize the remaining Wardens, further penance for his crimes and sins. 

Alistair…Alistair was somewhere. Far from her. 

And Mordred had abandoned her. 

And Ashlinn was alone. 

In her heart, she knew her child was not a monster, but her mind kept coming up with doubts? If it even resembled a monster or looked slightly different than a normal human, her child would face persecution. She was afraid of this, and not being able to protect her baby. Her stomach had started to grow, and she found herself rubbing the baby bump with affection. It was all she had now in life, and she would die before someone took it away. 

She had ordered a room in a tavern in a small town of Crestwood that was being rebuilt after darkspawn broke the dam and flooded the town. She had made one step into the room, and then she _felt_ a shift in the air. Whirling around, she came face with Mordred. She had known she had felt eyes on her since she had left Denerim, and had been wary of retaliation by way of Arl Howe’s allies that were still a bit sore from her killing him. The emotions that she had been holding back suddenly burst forth, and all of the directed at the apostate. “You!” 

She lunged forward and slapped him across the face. “You knew! You intentionally got me pregnant!” She said, slapping him again. Of course, she had her suspicions, but the second that he practically confirmed them, the anger that she had felt—at Alistair, at him, at herself—all bursting towards the surface. “With an archdemon baby! You bastard!” 

She went to slap him again, but he grabbed her by her wrists, hauling her towards his chest. “Now is that anyway to greet the father of your child?” Mordred smiled, and then pulled her into a passionate and possessive kiss swallowing all her protests. 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you all enjoyed!
> 
> I don't know where I came up with the idea of a Male Morrigan. It just suddenly hit me, and I couldn't stop myself from writing it. I really need more of this idea. If anyone likes it and wants to play around with it you have my permission as long as you tell me so I can read it. lol
> 
> If you are curious, I have mentally cast the males.  
> Daniel di Tomasso as Garrett Hawke  
> Tom Hiddleston as Male! Morrigan  
> Scott Eastwood as Alistair  
> Jarred V Swodeck as Cullen Rutherford
> 
> Adios, and have a good night. :D


	6. The Apple of My Eye

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summary: Ashlinn and Echo go to the Black Emporium. Ashlinn gets a pocket pets, while Echo gets Solas a special surprise. *No Smut  
> Tags: Kind of Crackish, But Has a Serious Side, Feels, Love, Smut-free (sadly)
> 
> Thank you FirstFanGrrl and Jade_Blanc for adding me to your bookmarks!  
> Thank you Jade_Blanc, Ms_Saboteur, Kohanita, Catann, nessakusterbeck, UsakoAuditore, brickholtz, KittyDragoness, melgonzo, eluria, QualityRachni, Hexpixie, 13_Ravens, and 0102and03 and the 9 guests that left kudos on my work!

CHAPTER SIX 

The Apple of my Eye

* * *

The trip to the Black Emporium was fruitful. They had gotten some schematics and rare supplies—on a discount because Ashlinn and Xenon has struck a strange sarcastic repartee that apparently endeared the Hero of Ferelden to the Antiiquarian—and now they had finally returned to Haven. With the gates in sight, Echo spared Ashlinn a smirk and said, “You know Cassandra is going to kill for bringing those back with you.” 

“That is if Cassandra finds out,” Ashlinn sniffed, pulling off a piece of bread. She held the tiny crumb right above the pocket of her jacket and two tiny little palms came up out of her pocket grasping the piece of food before disappearing back into her pocket. She repeated the process to her other pocket, and the same result. “Besides, it wasn’t like they cost anything. Xenon stated they weren’t selling as well as he hoped, and he gave them away.” 

“He gave them to you because he _liked_ you,” Echo said, repressing a shudder. 

“So? We’re cut from the same snarky cloth. Sarcasm appreciates sarcasm, Echo,” Ashlinn said, without batting an eye. 

Echo snorted, lightly. “Whatever you say, but Cassandra specifically said not to bring back pets. With all the running we have to do everywhere we can’t take care of them,” the elf pointed out, with a small smile and a shake of her head. 

Ashlinn pursed her lips. “There pocket pets! I can take them everywhere with me!” 

“And the one in your bag?” 

“It fits, doesn’t it? I feed her, and she practically purrs inside of there. I wouldn’t keep her in there if she wasn’t warm, safe, and happy,” Ashlinn said, stubbornly. “Now quiet. Seeker incoming.” 

“You two have returned unharmed,” Cassandra approached them, with her hands clasped behind her back. “From Leliana’s report, you found not trouble with your journey.” 

“Yep, it was rather smooth sailing. Other than Echo’s seasickness that is,” Ashlinn commented, with a half-smile. 

“Unnecessary information, Ash,” Echo groaned. 

Cassandra looked slightly amused by the Herald’s embarrassment. “We are glad that you are back. I shall have the servants send meals to your cabin, and—” the Seeker cut off, her eyes widened incredulous on the satchel on Ashlinn’s hip. “Is that…a fennec?” 

Ashlinn’s face fell. “Um…maybe?” 

“It’s a mini fennec,” Echo supplied, helpfully. 

“Traitor!” Ashlinn declared. 

“Lady Cousland, I thought we made this cl—are those more animals?” The Seeker’s voice rose as Ashlinn’s two sugar gliders poked their heads out of her pockets, curious about the noises. “Three animals? Do you have more hiding on your person?” 

“No! No! It’s just these three,” Ashlinn reassured, with a shaky grin. “I mean, they are small and wouldn’t be any trouble, Seeker. They were also free!” 

“Free?” Cassandra asked, suspiciously. 

“Xenon and Ashlinn have a thing,” Echo shrugged, biting back her laughter. 

“What?” Cassandra’s eyes widened. 

“It’s not some weird sex thing,” Ashlinn defended, sharply. “No matter how much Echo likes to be dirty and imply it. Seeker, my pets won’t be any trouble. I can take them with me, and carry them in my pockets, and they are small so they don’t eat much!” 

“And in the heat of battle? What if an enemy cuts and slashes at you? Your pockets and satchel are poor protection, and your pets could easily be slaughtered,” Cassandra pointed out, with an eyebrow arched. 

Ashlinn looked horrified at the implication. 

Echo laughed, unable to hold it back. Shaking her head, she took a step away from the two and said, “I’m going to go deliver this stuff to Therin. You two hash this out without coming blows or shout, okay?” The Herald said, before she quickly darted away. Giving over all the stuff for the Inquisition, Therin eyed the container that Echo held close to her side. “A personal item,” Echo explained, hurriedly. She turned away from the woman because while she respected the woman’s work ethic, Therin was a bit of a racist towards elves, and honestly had no reason to know any of Echo’s business. 

Besides, Echo was a little flustered by the impulse buy. 

It was a foolish purchase, and she hated Ashlinn giving her those secretive smiles like she knew exactly who it was for. She probably did because Ashlinn had no problem letting Echo know that she saw “chemistry” between her and Solas. She even said she shipped it, much to Echo’s embarrassment and had Varric start a betting pool. Echo prayed that Solas never discovered it because Echo would just have to crawl underneath a rock and die. 

She had seen them and had thought of Solas. She had agonized over the pricey purchase, and spent a lot of personal gold on it. Not that it broke her or anything. Echo had stored plenty gold away over the years, just in case for a rainy day, but this had been the most she had spent on something nonessential. She found herself standing in front of Solas’s cabin door, and swallowed thickly. Raising her hand, she knocked gently on the door. 

There was a pause and then a shuffle from the other side. Papers being put away before the door was pulled open, and she found herself staring up at Solas. Her heart fluttered inside of her chest, and she licked her lips. “I got you something,” Echo blurted out. 

Solas’s brows shot upward. 

“Wait. No, I didn’t mean for that to come out like that. I meant to be less abrupt, and led with a talk about the weather, and how you’ve been doing,” Echo sputtered, feeling heat in her cheeks. It was times like this that she cursed her wagging tongue, and brain for not inputting her words right. “But I do have something for you, if you don’t mind me coming in for a moment?” 

Those shrewd eyes scrutinized before he stepped aside. “Of course, lethallan. Please come in.” 

“Thank you,” Echo smiled, stepping into the cabin. A flood warmth washed over her from the fire inside the cabin as she stepped out of the cold, and she felt Solas shut the door behind her. There had been a level of distance between them ever since she pulled Ashlinn out of the Fade. He had been severe and disappointed by the risk she took, no matter how successful it had been in saving Ashlinn’s life. She understood his point of view, but he hadn’t made it easy for her to talk to him after everything. “I know that…that we’ve had a difference of opinion many times, but I don’t like arguing with you, Solas. I like the distance even less because you’re my friend, and I just…I just want to offer a peace offering.” 

Solas sighed, lightly. “I do not contend with you because I care to do so, lethallan, but merely out of concern. You push yourself too far, and one day you will cross a line that you won’t be able to come back from,” he stated, with his hands clasped in front of him. “Losing you…” his brow pinched, and jaw clenched. “The Inquisition would not recover. The world would not recover. You must take care with your actions and choices, but you allow yourself to forget this in the heat of the moment. Your emotions rule you.” 

“I know. I know, and I know I promised to do better, but you know that Ashlinn is my best friend. I couldn’t leave her there, not when it was my fault. I…had to make it right,” Echo explained, her expression sorrowful. She looked away from him, brushing her hair out of her face and gave a light shake of her head. “But I don’t want to fight about that again. What done is done, and all we have is going forward. So…can we put that to rest, and move forward?” 

Solas considered her and her words for such a long time that Echo began to feel disheartened, when he nodded sharply. “I see no reason that we cannot, lethallan,” he told her, his tone more gentle that the masked expression on his face that gave away nothing. 

Echo gave him a smile, wishing that she felt that he truly meant that without reservations. Shifting the box tucked into her side, she looked down at it and remembered why she came here. “Oh, yes. Um, here!” She held out the box to him, and tried to hide the fluster feeling that rose up inside of her chest. 

Solas eyes the box curiously, before he took it from her hands. 

“Open it,” Echo encouraged, wanting to watch his reaction. 

Solas quirked up an eyebrow, but did as asked. His fingers seamlessly unworked the string that kept the box sealed shut, and when he lifted the lid, peering down inside, he went still as a statue. His lips parted in shock, and eyes widened in disbelief. He walked over to his desk, and placed the package down so he could lift the jar out of the box. “Where did you find this?” His voice barely more than a whisper, as he ran his fingers across the jar almost reverently. 

Echo shifted on the balls of her feet. “At the Black Emporium. Xenon carries a wealth of objects, and they are usually authentic so when I saw the apples, and…well, do you like it?” She asked, gnawing on her lower lip. It was pickled apples from Arlathan. Or at least, that’s what Xenon had claimed. Judging by the taken aback reaction that Solas had, she figured they were the genuine article. 

“Like it?” He breathed out. “This is…” He turned towards her, his eyes bright with emotions and his throat bobbed. “Thank you. This is a most generous gift. I do not know how I can repay you for such thoughtfulness,” he stated, his voice soft and barely more than a whisper. 

“You don’t have to repay me, Solas,” Echo said, taking a step forward then another before she stood in front of him. “I wanted to get this for you, and I don’t expect anything in return. That’s what a gift is.” 

“You’d be surprised how few view gifts as something given freely without expectation of return,” he stated, his brow furrowed lightly. His blue eyes swept across her face, and the pulse in his jaw thumped. “I must understand your thoughts. I know you wish this to broker peace between us, but why this item? Why give me something from…” _From my past,_ went left unsaid, but the words hung between them as if they had been spoken. 

“Because they made me think of you,” Echo answered, honestly. “You speak of me giving so much of myself, and worry there won’t be anything left of me when it’s over. I see the same thing when I look at you, and I just…I just wanted to give you something. You have done so much for me, personally, even when it would have been easier to just leave. You had no reason to trust that I would keep your secret, but you still stayed and I’m…” She felt her eyes fill up with tears, and she blinked them away. “You stayed and that means more than you will ever know.” 

Solas expression shifted, his eyes piercing and the air between them went taunt and simmered with a slow heat. His hand reached up, cupping her jaw with such tenderness that it stole her breath away. “You…” He trailed off, after the word as if he were rendered speechless by her admission. 

Echo’s heart thumped inside of her chest, and she was keenly aware of him. His presence seemed to consume her, wrapped around her and she inhaled shakily, pressing her palms upon his chest. She did not push him away, but instead felt the strength within him. Her fingers curled into his tunic as her eyes stared soulfully up at him, asking for things that she did not realize and Solas bent his head, allowing his nose to brush against hers. His breath fanned her lips, and Echo’s eyes fluttered closed… 

When a loud knock on the door made the jump apart like two teenagers caught necking by an adult. Echo’s legs knocked back against the chair causing it to clatter against the floor while Solas muttered a low curse when his hip hit the corner of his desk. “Yes?” He called out, after a moment. His voice was strained, and his eyes burned holes into the door, silently cursing whoever stood at the other side. 

“The Herald is needed in the War Room,” an unfamiliar voice said, most likely a scout. He sounded rather skittish, though Echo didn’t blame because Solas sounded almost feral. 

“I’ll be there momentarily,” Echo said, her voice more shaky than she would have liked it to be. 

“I’ll let the Seeker know,” the scout said, and from the rushed footsteps, he made a hasty retreat from the door. 

Echo stood there, feeling her stomach sink. She knew that her and Solas were about to kiss, and she felt so torn in this moment. She wanted to say, but she needed to go. Solas said he could see her lose herself, and if she stayed here, she would do just that. It was too fast. Too soon. “I should…I should go,” she said, rushing towards the door. 

“Echo…” The way he said her name—a rare occurrence—made her halt in turning the doorknob. “We will finish this.” 

The promise sent a shiver or anticipation down her spine. “We will.” 

And with that, she fled the cabin. 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> END OF CHAPTER!  
> *This idea hit me when I visited the Black Emporium and found the “Pickled Apples of Arlathan”. When I read the codex entry, I suddenly had an image of Echo—who has most likely been to the Black Emporium before—and her realizing that Fen’Harel (Solas) would appreciate this gift. _Codex Entry: I expressed my incredulity to the shop's assistant, who coldly noted that he did not like my implication. He insisted that every article in the Black Emporium was genuine—no fakes, imitations, or cheap knock-offs. I must have appeared unconvinced, for the assistant narrowed his eyes at me and disappeared into the bowels of the shop, returning several minutes later. He removed the jar of pickled apples from its display case, and proceeded to carefully, reverentially, remove the wax seal from the lid of the jar. I watched with fascination as the jar was opened, and a single, rosy apple pulled from it. It looked as if it had been picked just that day, at the peak of ripeness. With a paring knife, the assistant cut the tiniest sliver of flesh from the apple and presented it to me. The flavor of that one small sliver was astonishing. It was as close to a perfect apple as ever there was. I was experiencing the essence of every apple ever eaten, and that ever will be eaten. When it was over, the sense of loss that filled me was sharp enough to move me to tears. The rest of the apple was returned to the jar, which was then resealed. I paid five sovereigns for that single taste, and I believe I got the better part of the bargain.—From the letters of Brother Ferdinand Genitivi to Sister Petrine, Chantry scholar_  
>  ***NOTE***: This may end up being cannon to my story “Through the Ashes We Climb” except Ashlinn’s rather cracky part. Okay, that might be cannon to, but written less crackish because I freaking love sugar gliders. Go look them up on youtube, you will fall in love with you.


	7. Claimed, Marked, Branded

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summary: Omegas Echo and Ashlinn seek shelter in an ancient elven not knowing their scent has been picked up by the Dread Wolf, but is the a meeting a chance? Or could fate had made their paths cross with the ancient alpha’s? *Lots of Smuttiness/Soulmates  
> Pairing: Echo/Ashlinn, Echo/Fen’Harel(Solas), Ashlinn/Fen’Harel(Solas), Echo/Fen’Harel/Ashlinn, Implied Alistair/Fen’Harel/Echo/Ashlinn  
> Tags: Omegas and Alphas, Heat, Femslash, M/F/F, Implied M/M/F/F in the future, Reluctance (because I apparently have a kink), Soul Bonds, Hardcore Sex Magic, Ashlinn is an omega with alpha tendencies, But it’s okay cuz they like it, Fen’Harel is into Kinky Fuckery, Dom/Sub tones, Dominance, Polygamous Soulmates, Porn with Feels and Plot  
> Thank you FirstFanGrrl and Jade_Blanc for adding me to your bookmarks!  
> Thank you Nib, Jade_Blanc, Ms_Saboteur, Kohanita, Catann, nessakusterbeck, UsakoAuditore, brickholtz, KittyDragoness, melgonzo, eluria, QualityRachni, Hexpixie, 13_Ravens, and 0102and03 and the 12 guests that left kudos on my work!  
> Note: I can’t believe I wrote fourteen pages of smut. Wow. That’s a lot of smuttiness. This is the first time I have ever wrote Femslash, or a threesome smut, so don’t judge me too harshly? :P

CHAPTER SEVEN 

“Claimed, Marked, Branded” 

* * *

The doors magically sealed behind them allowing the two Omegas Echo and Ashlinn to finally breathe a sigh of relief. They had been long pursed by Arl Rendon Howe, an alpha that had wished to unite his house to the Cousland house through Ashlinn and his son Thomas. Bryce Cousland was a rather proactive Alpha, and allowed Ashlinn, an omega to have a choice—a rare occurrence in the world of Thedas. When Ashlinn rejected Thomas’s advances, it had led to a rather nasty fallout between the families and was responsible for their current predicament. Arl Rendon Howe, his son and a small garrison had stalked Ashlinn and Echo on their hike across the plains to gather herbs. The Arl seemed under the impression that if his son bonded with Ashlinn against her will, and got her swollen with children then her father would have no choice but to approve the marriage. Howe also had an obsession with Echo was the resident healer in Highever (and a mage though that wasn’t common knowledge) and Ashlinn’s best friend. 

Ashlinn had a close relationship with Echo ever since her father found the elf confused and wandering near their home and took her in. The two instantly clicked, like something in their souls recognized what their minds could not, and the two were inseparable. The relationship took a rather unorthodox turn when Ashlinn and Echo started going into the heat at the exact same time. Neither of them had intended for the carnal element to be brought into their lives, but one night when in need of relief, the two gave it to each other. It was then they realized they were true mates, but they lacked the alpha to finish their bonding. They could relieve each other, but the relief would not last—only an alpha’s barb could fully sate the heat of an omega. But it took the edge off and allowed them not to slip into being so desperate as to beg for any alpha to claim them. 

“Are we safe here?” Echo questioned, her skin flushed. They should have been back in the safety of Highever before their heats kicked in, but because of Howe’s men, they were forced to take shelter in these decrepit ruins. Her skin was starting to feel too tight as her sex dampened with the telltale sign of a heat. 

“We’ll clear out a room, and barricade ourselves in if necessary,” Ashlinn replied, her throat bobbing. She, too, felt the stirrings of the heat upon her body and knew that they needed somewhere they could rest safely. The two made their way through the tomb—remarkably preserved for an elvhen which scavengers usually picked apart long before now—and no giant spiders at all, they found a bedroom. The ornate and beautiful bed had been cracked, falling apart and the mattress eaten away by moths and time. 

The balcony was too high for any alphas to dare climb, and was 

“Your father will be displeased with Howe,” Echo commented, lightly. 

“Yes, but there isn’t much he can do. Despite him being the Teyrn, the laws about omegas are ones that he cannot change alone and few nobles are proactive when it comes to fighting for omegas rights. Howe will claim that the smell of heats is what drew his men after, and deny his vile intentions to force claims upon us,” Ashlinn stated, with a deep set frown. Her parents were what mates were meant to be. Chosen out of love, and her father treated her mother as an equal despite her being an omega. Not a lot of omegas had such lots in life, and were more often than not treated like whores that couldn’t—or shouldn’t—say no to whatever alpha gave them attention. Howe could not understand why her father allowed her to reject offers from alphas, or why he let her mother have so much say in the goings on in Highever. 

“The way is sealed, and with no mage with them they’ll give up…hopefully,” Echo said, running her fingers down her neck. She did not like Howe one tiny bit. The man treated her like a novelty, or an amusing pet when he first met her at Highever. When it was discovered she was an ancient elf, a great many flocked to her from all over the world and the fact that she was an omega made her a very wanted prize. If she hadn’t met such a kind family as the Couslands—and her mate in Ashlinn—she shuddered to think about what would have happened to her. 

“Yes. Hopefully,” Ashlinn nodded. She turned with a small smile upon her lips, and held out her hand to Echo who took it without hesitation. “Come on. Now that we’ve got a place to rest, let us set about making something to eat.” 

Echo’s lips quirked upward. “I’m not exactly hungry for food.” 

Ashlinn snickered. “And you call me insatiable when I’m in heat. Come on,” she tugged her lover towards the great ornate fire place that had a story carved into it about a great wolf that was being hunted, but in the end, the wolf slew the hunter and conquered the woods. It was a strange depiction for most tales were of the hunter being victorious. “First food, then we can move onto to dessert.” 

After gathered wood from the balcony where trees limbs had fallen, and Ashlinn cut a few down that were within reach, she stacked them into the fireplace where Echo lit it with a gentle burst of fire magic. Skinning the few squirrels they had caught along the trail that had been intended for lunch, they ate the cooked meat along with dried berries and nuts they had packed from Highever. It was not a bountiful feast, but it quelled their hunger and in the end that was all that was needed. 

After they ate, Ashlinn made up the bedrolls close to the fire and Echo walked up behind her, wrapping her arms around her waist. Brushing the hair away from the nape of her neck, Echo brushed her lips there. Ashlinn grinned slightly before she turned around in the elf’s arms, and Ashlinn pressed her lips to Echo’s, and tilted the elf’s head to the side to deepen it. With a swipe of her tongue, Ashlinn plunged it into Echo’s willing mouth when the other woman opened eagerly to the assault. Out of the pair of them, Ashlinn was the more dominate of them. Despite being an omega, she was a noble born and taught to be demanding and hold her ground against a world that saw her as less. Echo could appreciate that for she had once lived in a time where weakness could easily mean death, and freedom was hard kept. Clothes pooled to the floor, striped off piece by piece until the two women were pressed skin to skin. 

Echo moaned, licking eagerly into Ashlinn mouth as the other woman’s hands wrapped around her breasts. Ashlinn gently massages the mounds before plucked at the nipples, and shifted her thigh in between Echo’s legs allowing the elvhen woman to rock against it. She was already so wet, and her arousal painted Ashlinn’s thigh making in glisten in the moonlight. Breaking the kiss, Ashlinn made Echo follow her down on the bedroll and urged to lie down on her back. Her teeth raked against Echo’s hammering pulse before she ducked down and bit her breast, not enough to draw blood but definitely enough to leave a mark. Echo jerked, giving a loud moan and her hands planted on Ashlinn’s shoulder. She pressed her to go further downward, and Ashlinn made no resistance. 

Leaving a trail of nips and kissing, Ashlinn finally arrived at the apex of Echo’s thighs and easily shoved her legs apart and hooked her knees over her shoulders before she teased Echo’s labia with feather light touches. Ashlinn chuckled when Echo gave a roll of her hips, searching for something more and she sealed her lips over Echo’s mound without a second’s warning. 

“Oh!” Echo’s head tossed backwards, and her fingers knotted into the bedroll. 

Ashlinn tongue coaxed and teased her clit while she pressed her fingers deep into Echo’s wet heat as they would go and scissors them inside of her. She flicked at her little bud a few times before settling into a rhythm and Echo squealed, her hands sliding into Ashlinn’s hair. “Oh, that feels so…good,” Echo moaned, through gritted teeth. She cupped her own breasts, pulling at the nipples roughly to give a little pain to strengthen the pleasure. The sensation went straight down to her sex, and she felt heat coil in her belly. It would be only a matter of seconds before she came undone. 

Ashlinn pumped her fingers faster, and nibbled at her clit. Echo came with a harsh gasp that dissolved into a quiet moan, her hips jerked and pressed her mound against Ashlinn’s lips. After she slumped back against the floor, Ashlinn continued to suckle at her sex drawing out the tremors and aftershocks for as long as she could. Finally, Ashlinn lifted her head and smirked up at Echo who was trying to catch her breathe. She withdrew her fingers from Echo who moaned lightly in disappointment before she shoved Ashlinn over onto her back. 

Ashlinn quirked up an eyebrow when Echo straddled her hips, and the elf smirked. “Turnabout is fair play.” 

* * *

The fire was low barely more than a few licks of flames that ate at the charred wood, and the two women had slumbered for about an hour before something made Echo wake up. A prickle ran along her scalp and the strange feeling of being watched pressed upon her back, but that couldn’t be. She sensed her wards still in place, and let her fluttering eyes fall closed, thinking it was just paranoia left over from being hunted. Then suddenly a moan slipped out of Echo’s mouth as the most tempting alpha aroma she had ever smelt caressed her nose, and she felt herself start to drip with desire almost instantaneously. Her blood heated like a forge, and her heat was back stronger than ever despite the release that Ashlinn’s tongue and fingers had granted her earlier. “Ash…Ash, do you smell that?” Her voice was rough with lust and desire; the depths of her vagina spasm painfully. 

“Hmm?” Ashlinn murmured, sleepily. Her eyes fluttered open in confusion, then she went still as a statue after taking a deep breath. Her eyes snapped open all of the way, and she sat up abruptly almost knocking over Echo in the process. She angled her body towards the figure that loomed just a distance away, and Echo followed her line of sight. 

An elven man sat up on the dais a few feet away, with his legs crossed and gazed contemplatively at the pair of them. His long black velvet rob, embroidered with golden thread that spun pictures of wolves upon his shoulders fell loosely about him, masking his figure. Upon his head was a crown made out of bones, and dark reddish dreadlock that had been pulled back out of his face while the sides of his head was clean shaven. His handsome was slender and the features stunning as if they had been carved from marble and his eyes were lambent like they were made out of blue fire. He did not move, or speak when he saw that she was conscious, just merely regarded her in a manner that a wolf regards a rabbit. 

Echo felt alarm trickle down her supple spine like ice-water. “Who are you?” she demanded, her voice more of a pant as she grasped the bedroll to cover them up as modestly as she could. He was the alpha that she had scented, and the reason that her heat—and undoubtedly Ashlinn’s—had returned with a vengeance. 

“I am Fen’Harel, and you little omega are in my temple,” his voice was rich and resonant, like the soft tone of wooden wind chimes. The strange tongue common was rather brutish in comparison to his native tongue, and the words felt stilted in mouth. He had stolen the knowledge of it out of one of the trespassers’ mind, and left them man with no understand of it whatsoever as retaliation for desecrating the sanctity of his temple. “Tell me, why does one of the people trespass here with a shem woman?” 

Ashlinn wrapped an arm around Echo’s waist, and held her tightly. Her chin raised defiantly in a way that normal omegas simple were not meant to be, and she stared down the man who claimed to be the Dread Wolf. “We sought shelter from enemies,” she stated, diplomatically. Her body trembled, and it took every ounce of willpower not to throw herself upon him. To drown in his alpha scent and beg him for the pleasure of his knot. An omegas life was often dictated by their heat, and most saw them as nothing more than fuck toys when in heat because an omega often lost control of their need, and broke down needing an alpha because otherwise they would be driven insane. The pheromones from herself and Echo perfumed the room, heightened by his presences and Ashlinn fought to keep her mind clear, but it was a slippery slope. One that she was sliding down fast. “We would not be here if we had been given another choice.” 

“The group of alphas and betas that I chased off,” Fen’Harel inclined his head, lightly. The scents lured him out of his long sleep—an alpha that has long since touch starved could not resist such beautiful scents, and when he magic sought and searched, he had floundered. There were much more than mere omegas, but his magic branded them as his mates. Centuries after his world crumbled, it was surely a mockery of fate to find them now and one of them be a quick child. He had chased off those that trespassed on his lands, using his fearsome form and then came to find his mates sleeping soundly. He had not intended to wake them up, but he would not squander the opportunity provided. “Ready to rut and fuck any omega in heat in their paths, no doubt, but what makes them your enemies? With your heats, would you not welcome an alpha’s cock between your thighs? Why do you torture yourself, and not seek relief?” 

“Just because we are omegas doesn’t mean we don’t have standards. Yes, the heats are hard to endure, but I’d rather endure that and find our true alpha mate than attempt to find relief only to be bound to an alpha that would use me as a plaything,” Echo answered, recklessly. Her lithe body was rigid, and her chest stuttered with every breath. 

Fen’Harel laughed softly. “And what of you, shemlen? Are you of the same mind?” He asked, curiously. So they knew they were bonded, but they did not recognize him as their alpha. Yet. If they were not in heat, his better and wiser senses would have urged him to gently break the news to them, but he was an alpha in the company of his omegas. Their heats bid him to claim them, and his animalistic instincts welled up inside of him leaving such things as wisdom to the back of his mind. 

“Yes. I would rather have a choice in who my mate is,” Ashlinn stated, fiercely. No one believed in true mates anymore. It was a fable to most people, but a true mate’s scent would call to them like no other. When they bonded it would be more than a physically connection, but one where their souls were weaved together forever. No force in all of Thedas could break a bond such as that. Her parents had a bond like that, and she had been taught to never settled for anything less. “But I fail to see how this is any matter to the Dread Wolf? Why would you care about what we want in a mate?” 

“We rarely have a choice, dear one, even picky omegas such as yourselves. The fates long weaved a tapestry long before any of us were a thought upon the thread, and whom our souls are bound was determined before we even knew such things as choice,” Fen’Harel told them, with a sly sort of smirk upon his lips. “It is my concern you see because how you stumbled into my domain. Your scents like a ripe grape ready to be wringed of its precious juices and turned into a fine wine called me from my long sleep. Long before I intended to awake, but as I said, fate does not care for our choice. If it had, it would not put my true mates before me now.” 

Echo stiffened, a gasp tore from her while Ashlinn’s face went wary, her eyes narrowed. “You expect us to believe that we are your mates,” Echo said, her voice was harsher than she intended. She didn’t know what to make of his claims, from his identity to his casual reference of them as his mates. Oh, all the worries they had when they sought refuge in this temple, he had not been one of them, but he was beginning to become one and fast. 

Fen’Harel looked pleased by her open defiance rather than annoyed. “You tell me, da’fen. Does my scent not lure you to me? Does it not make your loins quiver with an ache so great that only a true mate can fulfill it? Does it not bid you to come to me, and take the pleasure that I offer you?” His robe slipped off his shoulders, pooling to the floor and his body was revealed to them. The moonlight that pooled in from the balcony played beautifully across the plains of his lithe, powerful body. He was taller than the average elf, with a broader chest that traveled down to his toned stomach and tapered hips. His thighs were nothing short of glorious and his manhood bulged against his hide pelt. He looked wild and untamed like the heathen god the Chantry claimed him to be, and his eyes were filled with dark promises that he intended to fulfill by the time the night was over for both the women before him. “I am well versed in the arts of pleasure. My youth was filled with abandon and debauchery and I learned the most carnal of arts that I will enjoy teaching to the both of you.” 

Ashlinn’s lips pressed together in a thin line, and her jaw trembled. 

Echo nearly came from his words alone. The way he spoke seemed to seduce her senses, and she rubbed her thighs together to alleviate some of the tension. She flushed when she saw Fen’Harel watch the motion, and his smile broadened. “Come, little one. I have waited time beyond measure for you, both of you,” he said, holding out his towards Echo beckoning her to come towards him. “I do not intend to waste this night that fate seems to favor me.” 

Her magic pulsed, reaching out towards him. Something inside of Echo clicked into place, an epiphany that shocked her to her core when she realized that the Dread Wolf was not deceiving them. Much like she realized that Ashlinn was her mate, her magic told her that Fen’Harel was as well. “I…” Echo trembled, not sure what to do. She found herself lifting up onto her knees, the blanket that she held to conceal them dropped to the floor and her hand reached out towards his. 

“Echo…” Ashlinn looked shocked. 

“He’s…he’s telling the truth, Ashlinn. He’s out mate. I can feel it,” Echo said, her voice mystified. Her arm outstretched in the air to reach Fen’Harel’s while her body leaned towards Ashlinn who still held her tightly. “My magic can _feel_ it, and it recognizes him like it recognized you.” 

Ashlinn still didn’t look convinced. She had known many alphas that tried to con her with various tricks over the years, so how could she on good faith believe this elvhen man? Especially when he called him Fen’Harel and claimed that this was his temple. Surely that was a jest. _But was it?_ Her traitorous mind said. _After all, Echo is one of the ancient elves. Surely, she is not the last? But of all the luck to run into our alpha mate here? Is fate so twisty and tricky to put us on this path to him?_

“I will not take either of you by force. I will only take what is freely given and until the words pass through your lips that you wish for me to claim you, then only then will I will I bury myself deep into your body. But…” The left corner of his mouth tilted upwards. “I do reserve the right to seduce you, and make you see how compatible we are.” 

“Seduce us how?” Ashlinn said, her voice a little more shaky than she cared to admit. Her mind and body was torn in two different directions. Her mind couldn’t comprehend that he was their mate, surely they were not that lucky to stumble upon him. Her body recognized him, lust pooling through her blood with a white hot intensity that no other alpha could create and wanted to complete the bond. 

That was all the permission he needed. With a wave of his hand, a magic light burst to life and wrapped around Ashlinn almost greedily. The magic formed hungry lips shaped against her mound, and she jolted forward with a scream, releasing Echo from her grasp. She fell onto the hands and knees in shock from the sudden burst of pleasure, and looked down at the shapeless form of light that was between her legs. She went to crawl away from it, a little frightened by the turn of events, and the light shot out, wrapping around her ankles and wrists like shackles. It held her place, as the feeling of a tongue scraped against her clit, and her jaw clenched. She was fighting against the moans that welled up in the back of her throat, and her hands curled into fists against the stoned floor. 

“Oh…” Echo groaned, her head falling to the side. The link that was already established between her and Ashlinn allowed for Ashlinn’s pleasure to bleed through, and it made the ravenous yearning within the female elf grow tenfold. 

Fen’Harel rose from his dais, and grasped her hand that was still outstretched and tugged her to his chest. His nose buried into the juncture of her neck, and he inhaled deeply. “I have your scent, vhen’an’ara,” he purred, pressing his lips against her excited pulse. “The combination of yours and hers…it is intoxicating.” 

“You smell wonderful, too,” Echo said, drunkenly. She was high off of his scent, and knowing that he was their mate had released all her inhibitions. She moaned as one hand pinched her nipples, gently but firm. His other hand quickly undid the binds of his hide armor, allowing it to drop to the floor with a thud and he helped her straddle him. She whimpered with the tip of his cock brushed her tender folds, and the urge to impale herself upon Fen’Harel’s length was almost too much to bear. 

But he did not have mercy on her yet. 

His teeth scraped along the underside of her jaw, as his right hand slid up the inside of her thigh. Touching and teasing, everywhere, but where she needed him the most. One hand on his shoulder to steady her, her other hand slid up the expanse of his chest and allowed her nails to catch gentle upon his nipple. Fen’Harel hissed at the sensation, his teeth bared into a feral smile that encouraged her to repeat the motion to the other nipple. Echo wondered what he would do if she leaned down and wrapped her teeth around them. Such thoughts were lost when he decided that it was time to suckle upon her nipples, stealing her opportunity from her. She panted as his hot mouth pulled on the hard tip of her breath, and her hand slid up into his hand holding on to the sensation he invoked in her body. 

“You feel her, don’t you? Her pleasure is yours and yours hers,” Fen’Harel groaned against her breast, and his fingers plunged between the lips of her sex. The tips of his fingers found the precious little bud and started to draw tight circles around it with just the right amount of pleasure to leave her hanging precariously on the edge of a climax. “Concentrate and _feel_ her.” 

A scream of denial mixed with a moan as Ashlinn orgasmed was muffled by the light expanding around to press into her mouth without leaving her thighs. It pulsed and throbbed like a cock, and when her tongue shoved against it, she could even feel veins as if it were an actual cock. It thrust between her lips while keeping her jaw pried open, and even though she was a little bit afraid, a part of Ashlinn was reluctantly turned on by this. “Hmmm. Hmmph,” Ashlinn moaned, her arousal dripping down from her thighs onto the floor. She had never been so wet, and the light that was suckling on her clit, elongated and pressed what felt like two long fingers inside of her. It pumped into her fast and without restraint. Her heated passage burned and stretched to fit them inside of her depths. A burst of healing magic soothed the pain, and the shackles at her ankles turned into hands on her thighs that pulled her back against the thrusting fingers, and Ashlinn’s nails scratched at the marble floor. She sucked on the magic in her mouth greedily, too overwhelmed by the pleasure to do anything else. The doubled pleasure from feeling her own ecstasy to having Echo’s added on top of it was unbearable, and exquisite in such a depraved way that Ashlinn withered helplessly as she came again. 

Echo shrieked, feeling Ashlinn’s orgasm tear through her like it was her own. Fen’Harel fingers plunged inside of her, and Echo pressed her forehead against his shoulder. “Please. Oh, please,” she begged, her hips snapping against his hands with a will of their own. She was chasing and seeking, needing to find the inevitable end. 

He removed his fingers, and Echo almost hissed like an angry cat until she felt his cock brushed her entrance and he sank her down onto him inch by delicious inch. Fen’Harel groaned into her neck, as her body twitched around him and Echo bit her lower lip to not let out the sob that welled in the back of her throat. It was so good. Too good. She almost couldn’t stand how wonderful he felt inside of her, and then he started moving her up and down over him. Those long fingers pressed into her hips controlling the rhythm of their of their dance, lifting her painfully slow until she was almost completely off of him then slamming her back onto him impossibly fast that it made her head spin. 

It was the best kind of torture. Echo pressed her lips to the underside of his jaw while giving him little moans, and pleas to go faster. “I’m not fragile,” she murmured, breathlessly against his pulse as she arched into his perfectly sculpted chest. “You won’t break me.” 

Fen’Harel smiled against her shoulder, and it was all the warning she got before he started moving her up and down his length without pause, without giving her a second to catch her breath. The slap of her pelvis meeting his rang in her ears, and a wobbly feeling entered her stomach while her nipples became taunt little peaks. Reaching down, Echo stroked her clit furiously to relieve the aching tension that built up in the little nub and when Fen’Harel’s teeth sank into her shoulder, she came around him violently. 

“Ar novena ma ir rosas’da’din, ma tel’aman melin,” Fen’Harel growled, his cock pulsed hard inside of her. He felt himself swell inside of her, tip of his cock extending even further into the soft sensitive tissue where none had touched her before and her breath stuttered when she felt the fleshy barb hook on the secret bundle of nerves inside of her vagina and latched on tightly. 

Echo’s made a noise of born out of the raw pleasure that tore through her. The feeling of it was something that drove her to the very edge of sanity, and her back arched so far back that she feared it would snap in half. Echo moaned, screamed and begged. Her hands clawed at her, at him, as mindlessly ecstasy consumed her. Her body convulsed and shook, her orgasm raged into one after another after another as spurts of semen were released sporadically from his cock into her womb. 

Beads of sweat dripped down between the valley of her breast, and Fen’Harel leaned down to catch them upon his tongue. The musky taste of her pheromones made his cock jolt painfully where it was latched to her, and the cords of his neck were drawn taunt as his heart pounded against his chest. He had never felt something so wonderful, and so beautiful with another being in all his life. _This_ is what his life had been missing so sorely before he had fallen asleep her those centuries ago, and now that he felt his magic burrow into her soul, and hers binding him in kind, he knew he’d never be able to let either of them go. He knew not what it meant for the future, but he would gladly charge into it with them. 

It took five more minutes until the barb released, and slid back into his half hard cock. He removed himself from Echo’s shaking body; the tremors of the orgasms made her look decadent. Her pale pink skin was flushed; love marks covered her neck and breast. She lied limp in his arms, barely able to move after being taken so through by him, and those mismatched eyes were glazed over with satisfaction. He pressed a kiss to hers lips, gentle and possessive before he used his magic to fix and clean the bed. He lifted her into his arms and gently laid her down upon the air light mattress. He pulled the blanket over her, and turned his eyes towards his other mate whom his magic still thoroughly tormented. 

She should be spent. She should be as sated as Echo was, feeling pleasure from his magic and Echo’s pleasure, but his other mate was stubborn. Fighting against the pleasure instead of relishing it and allowing herself to let go. His dispersed his magic, allowing it to fade away. The light pulled out of Ashlinn’s mouth with a pop, and a string of saliva dripped down against her lips. A slight murmur, an unintelligible oath came out of her mouth as she shoved herself to her shaky legs, the inside of her thighs glistening with her desire. His half hard cock stirred to life by the sight, and the smell of her, and he stroked himself lazily. 

Ashlinn glared at him, her cheeks flushed and her eyes glazed. She seemed to determine to fight this, and fight the bond, but Fen’Harel knew that she was a fighter. A survivor and it pained him to know that her heart had been jaded. Likely by another alpha in the past, but he would show that he was not the same as the brutes she encountered before now. Fen’Harel flashed Echo a quick smirk, and a wink before his magic rolled across her skin. Echo’s eyes closed on a sigh, and she fell back against the pillows enjoying the sensation of hands and mouths all over her skin. _Perhaps this is why the Chantry fears mages. If we were given the chance we would fuck the world into submission,_ Echo thought, with a breathless laugh. Her eyes watched as Ashlinn and Fen’Harel circled around each other like predators. She also knew that Fen’Harel didn’t know what to exactly make of Ashlinn, an omega with decidedly alpha tendencies. Ashlinn couldn’t accept that he was their mate on good faith for she had no magic to show her the connection between their souls, and years of fending off alphas that attempted to claim her in order to gain status or coin had created a stone wall around her heart. That is why she fought so harshly, and why she couldn’t just simply give into to what her body was trying to tell her heart. 

Echo could feel the anticipation run off of both of them, and she bit her lower lip, watching with an unblinking gaze. Ashlinn’s the anticipation to fight, but Fen’Harel’s was the anticipation of a good hunt. Adrenaline pulsed through Ashlinn’s veins as well as the heat of desire that she so desperately fought, Echo could feel it as if it coiled through her own nerve endings. Fen’Harel nose twitched as he smelt the heavenly scent of musk, and Echo felt her mouth salivate as surely as his did. Oh, if the magic that teased her to the point of insanity didn’t do her in then most certainly would feeling their emotions and pleasure. 

Ashlinn snarled baring her teeth at him like a panther ready to pounce, and Fen’Harel gave a wolfish grin, clacking his teeth at her tauntingly. And the hunt was on. 

A primal rhythm to each movement that while lacked grace, did not lack beauty. He would lunge, his fingertips brushing just the edge of her skin, but allowing her to dart away from him. She would bat his hands away, trying to find her footing in the unsteadiness of her conflicting emotions towards him. He allowed her to feel in control, but when she rushed him—either to attack, or rush into his arms—he decided to end the dance. He caught her in his arms, sending a flare of hot magic straight to her core to send her off balance just long enough to scoop her up and toss her onto the bed next to Echo. 

Echo laughed at the sheer shock on Ashlinn’s face. 

Ashlinn gave Echo a quick dirty look before she went to sit up, but it was too late. The Dread Wolf was already upon her, and he drank deeply from her womanly well. Ashlinn gasped for breath, she was so sensitive down there from all the attention that magic had paid to her clit that it was painful to be touched even as it sent shards of pleasure through her body. His tongue rubbed and pressed against her little bud; there was not gentle teasing here, this was a statement. A claim that she could not escape, even as she tried to close her legs but his upper body had her legs firmly pinned open and the arm braced on her stomach kept her in place. She ended up coming against his face, and she shrieked loudly. Her nails dug into the nape of his neck, and his shoulder so hard that it drew blood, but he didn’t seem to care. He kept licking and sucking on her until the point that her eyes had rolled into the back of her head, and broken, fractured noises fell from her lips. Her heat had in no way prepared her for someone so thoroughly dedicated to pleasuring their partner, and she hissed between clenched teeth. “Please…I can’t…I can’t…” 

Echo pulled herself up, and crawled over to where she kneeled a few inches above Ashlinn’s head. She reached out, grasping Ashlinn’s hands and pulled them until they rested on the sides of her face. “Feel us, Ashlinn. Stop fighting it and just feel the connection,” Echo coaxed, gently running her magic soothingly across Ashlinn’s skin. She showed her the pathways between each of them, how the maps of their souls aligned perfectly, and how they came together. 

Ashlinn choked on a whimper, and her brows knotted together. She relaxed against the mattress as best as she could, and focused on the image that Echo’s magic drew in her mind. It was the world was opening up to her in a new way, and she felt foolish for having not seen in such a way before. “Oh…we’re all together. Like patterns weaving one into the next…can’t tell where they separate, but we’re missing…” It was hard to string a sentence together when someone was worshipping her sex with their tongue. 

Fen’Harel finally had mercy on her, pulling his face away from her sweet nectar and he rose over her body. His cock pressed against the entrance of her sex, but he did not take her yet. Instead, he ran his hand lovingly across her cheek. “Yes. We have another mate it seems. Another alpha if my magic senses it right,” the elvhen god said, his tone light and musical. He sent a wave of healing magic across Ashlinn’s body to alleviate the oversensitivity, and the act did not drain him as it would have. The bonding between them had replenished a healthy amount of his magic, though he was not anywhere near his normal strength. But he did not mind sparing his mana on healing his mates for he would not have her in unbearable pain when he claimed her. “Good. I fear that I will need another alpha’s aid to keep the pair of you in line. Now…do you yield, my panther? Or do you need more persuasion?” 

Ashlinn bit on her lower lip. Her doubts were still there, but were nearly mute in light of being shown that he wasn’t a fake. He was their mate, someone that Ashlinn and Echo hadn’t thought they’d ever meet, and the reality of the situation left her dazed. Her body, however, knew what she wanted. What she _needed_. “I yield,” her voice barely more than a whisper, and her stomach clenched at the way his eyes flared with some kind of mystic light. 

Hooking her legs over his thighs, Fen’Harel grasped the tip of his cock running it along the seam of her pussy. He circled her clit a few times before he aligned himself with her hole, and pushed in just an inch. He then pulled himself out, and run his cock along her clit again before he pushed into her again, this time going a little deeper. Ashlinn moaned, her legs wrapping around his waist and after his fourth time taunting as he was, she locked her ankles behind him not allowing him to pull away from her. 

“So eager,” Fen’Harel chuckled. “Nuvenan rosa’da’din in ma sule enan’ma.” 

“Oh, Maker,” Ashlinn swallowed, hard. The sound of him talking to her like that in elvhen—words that were without a doubt dirty in context—made her body hotter, and she tightened her fingers around Echo’s while letting out a low whimper. 

“And the Dread Wolf takes you,” Echo chuckled, amused. 

Ashlinn growled, nipping at Echo’s nearby thigh. “He took you, too,” she said, on a breathless moan. 

“He did,” Echo grinned, pleased. 

Fen’Harel cocked up an eyebrow at the two of them. “Obviously not well enough if you two are still able to function and speak. An oversight that I will look forward to rectifying throughout the night,” he smirked, pushing himself deeper into Ashlinn’s heat. 

Ashlinn groaned, feeling her body stretch inch by inch to accommodate his length. “I think that’s a threat. That feels like a threat.” 

“Of the worst and most pleasurable kind, da’asha,” Fen’Harel promised, darkly. He felt her body quiver, and stretch to accept his girth. He let out a low, deep groan when he was buried as far as he would go, and he felt her pant beneath her. A thick sheen of sweat covered both of them while Echo looked on with bright eyes, and her throat bobbed at the beautiful sight. 

Releasing one of Ashlinn’s hand, Echo watched as it reached up to twine with Fen’Harel and she hissed watching him thrust in and out of Ashlinn’s body. There was something so erotic watching his cock disappear into Ashlinn’s hole, and watching Ashlinn body tremble with each motion, lost to the pleasure. The thrust grew faster and faster as electricity crackled in the air between them, an ancient magic binding all of them together piece by piece, putting together the puzzle of their souls in the most beautiful of ways. 

Echo knew the second the barb took root inside of Ashlinn. The swift inhaled, eyes widening, and a raw moan fell into their entwined lips as Ashlinn’s hips rocked against Fen’Harel’s pelvis, meeting his thrusts as if having him deep inside of her was the only thing she ever wanted. The waves of orgasm began rapidly—one toppling over the next— and Ashlinn entwined one hand with Echo’s, while the other hand slipped into Fen’Harel’s using them both as an anchor for the pleasure that tore through her without mercy. She had heard of the alpha’s knot, but to feel it lock inside her, touching nerve endings she had never knew existed, and the flood of warmth from his seed splashing into the darkest corners of her body made Ashlinn all the more wild. 

She cried out into Echo’s mouth as Fen’Harel bent his hand and allowed his mouth to suckle her engorged nipples, and Echo shuddered, working her free hand between her thighs. The added sensation of her own fingers working alongside of the magic humming into her body had her panting, and she could feel the air tighten around all of them. The heightened pleasure climbing and climbing towards the precipice and it would take precious little to send them all crashing over the edge. 

The sound of smacking flesh, whimpers, and groans created a decadent cacophony through the entire room as they all did the oldest dance known to the world, and Echo leaned forward, squeezing a hand between their bodies to find Ashlinn’s clit. Ashlinn’s eyes clenched tightly shut, a silent scream on her lips as she came one final time, her head tilting backward as her body flailed uncontrollably with the power of her release. Fen’Harel felt white lightning sped down his spine as she clenched around him, and his balls tightened before the last burst of sperm flooded into accepting her body. 

Echo let out a very unladylike curse when she was sent spiraling down with them. Their pleasure bounced around through them, pinging back and forth, until they all laid there in quivering spent sacks of flesh. The feeling was so intense and iridescent that Echo hadn’t known how she or Ashlinn had survived without their other mate. The feeling of being completed, loved, cherished swelled up within her chest so great that Echo felt tears pool in her eyes. But they weren’t truly complete. Not until they found their other mate, but he was out there. Her magic could feel him somewhere in the distant, just beyond their sight, but for now they had each other and they would find the last piece to their puzzle given time. 

Fen’Harel placed a kiss upon Ashlinn’s lips when Echo broke their kiss, and Ashlinn opened herself to him. He tongue plunged deep, claiming every inch of her mouth before he pulled back. She whimpered as he pulled himself out of her tender sex, but that was far from the end of the night. They spent many hours exploring each other in new and all kinds of pleasurable manners. Once he took Echo on all fours while her face was buried between Ashlinn’s thighs. Another time, the two women took turns sucking his cock, driving him higher and higher until he threw Ashlinn down claiming her again while his magic claimed Echo. Finally, when the early morning dawn broke over the horizon they were finally sated. With a bit of magic, Fen’Harel cleaned them up before he settled in the bed between them. He turned to Echo, and accepted a gentle kiss before the female elf nestled into his left side while Ashlinn burrowed into his right. None of them quite sure what the morning would hold, but that seemed like a distant worry as they laid there in each others’ arms. 

It would be another year before they found their other mate, Alistair, but that was another story for another time. 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> END OF CHAPTER!  
> Want more elvhen dirty talk, or elvhen period? Go to Fenxshiral. :D  
> Author’s Note: Solas was a bit more domineer here than normal. He is normally level headed and wise, but he is an alpha confronted with his true mates in heat. This causes his more controlling nature to come to the surface, and such things as wisdom and humbleness to the back burner. Also the barb thing was inspired by a book called Megan’s Mark by Lora Leigh (disclaimer here), it’s literature. Smutty literature.  
> Is it wrong I kind of want to write an AU version of this where it goes into the Fifth Blight because that’s where it is headed. I imagine Fen’Harel returning to Highever with Echo and Ashlinn to get a grasp on this world around him, and Arl Rendon Howe attacks soon after. Fen’Harel, going by Solas, turns into a giant six eyed wolf and Echo—and little Oren who Ashlinn sends with them after they barely managed to save him—escapes on his back while Ashlinn escapes through the secret passage with Duncan. Through the connection, they met up at Ostagar, and Solas isn’t pleased that Ashlinn has to become a Grey Warden, but it is soothed over when they find their mate Alistair. Alistair is reluctant because the Chantry has always taught that a person could only have one mate, but the three—Echo, Solas, and Ashlinn—of them will persuade him as they journey to end the blight. I’ve fallen into this whole omega/alpha dynamics troupe really hard, and I don’t want to get out. lol


	8. Make Me Real Pt 1

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Seggrit and Echo have a no strings relationship before Conclave. Seggrit tells Echo that this is the last time because while the townsfolk are none the wiser, Leliana’s spies are a different story and he’d rather not be on Nightgale’s radar. Echo sees Seggrit out, and Solas sees them. Things spiral from there. (Two Parter)
> 
> Warnings: Dub-con, non-healthy coping mechanism, bdsm elements, pregnancy preventive tea  
> Pairings: Echo/Seggrit, Solas/Echo

* * *

Chapter Eight 

“MAKE ME REAL Pt 1”

Echo bit into the pillow harshly to muffle the high-pitched whine that was pulled from the depths of her throat, and her hips gyrated back onto the thick cock that impaled her between her thighs. Seggrit didn’t have a great amount of length, but he was wide. So wide that her body always fought the intrusion, no matter how often they fucked. This wasn’t love. There was no love lost between her and Seggrit. This was just about chasing release, and chasing the high that only sex could create. Seggrit was rough and brutal with his thrust, giving as much pain and he did pleasure. A no string, uncomplicated relationship the two had agreed upon years ago when she started coming to Haven. One hand on the headboard to brace herself, and the other tangled in sheets as her body withered beneath the larger and heavier one. 

It was a unhealthy coping mechanism. Echo admitted this readily, but she had been lonely. She had been caught up in a world where she didn’t know if it was real, or in her head. Even after all these years, doubts would shadow her heart and old fears sprang to life. In these moments, where heated flesh pressed against heated flesh, where nerve ending fired off with agony and ecstasy, there were no room for such doubts. She felt _alive._ She felt _real._ The feeling of it anchored her to reality, if only for a moment. 

There were rules to their encounters. One, no kissing because was a level of intimacy that neither one of them wanted to cross. It might seem like a strange rule seeing how she had his cock in her mouth before, and he had given her oral many times. One might wonder how that was less intimate than kissing, and the reason was: kissing was for lovers. At least, that is how both of them saw it and they were not lovers. Fuck buddies, sure. Not lovers. Two, he was not allowed to touch her ears. Her ears were highly sensitive as all elves and it felt too personal to have him touch them. Three, Seggrit didn’t want any moon eyes or jealousy when it came to any of his other nightly excursions. Echo was fine with that as long as he got himself checked and cleared by a healer before he crawled into her bed. Sexual diseases weren’t that bad here. A trip to a healer and a potion cured them, but there were a few people who didn’t have the ability to go see a healer or just plain didn’t care. 

Her body trembled, the pleasure spiraling tight and hotter until she was twisting violently beneath him. Her front half dropped against the mattress, and a fissure of awareness sparked down her spine at the delicious new angle his thrusts took. He pumped into her, hard and unrelenting, driving every thought out of her head. She came, barely managing to keep her face buried into the pillow, to keep her yowl from startling her neighbors. The last thing either of them needed was the guards to come barging. 

Seggrit pulled himself out of her white hot clasp, and helped her flip over. On shaky limbs, she lifted herself up until her mouth was on level with his cock, and she took in deep into her mouth not sparing a moment on teasing. It only took a few pumps and strokes to finish him off, he was already on edge from how tightly she had squeezed him during her orgasm. One flick of her tongue on the beneath the head of his cock, and he spilt himself into the depths of her throat. Echo flinched slightly, the salty taste sharp and shocking to her tongue, but she swallowed as much as she could. Pulling her mouth off of him, Seggrit swiped up the come that had leaked out of the side of her mouth with his thumb and Echo sucked it off the digit. 

“Maker, nothing is better than elven cunt,” Seggrit groaned, his body completely satisfied. “Especially yours.” 

Echo grunted with distaste, shoving him away lightly. “You’re lucky you get _any_ cunt, asshole.” 

Seggrit just laughed. “Pretty sure I’m going to miss your mouth, too.” 

“There are plenty of warm mouths in Haven, Seggrit,” Echo said, cuttingly. “I’m sure that you can find one of them to suck your cock.” 

“I’m sure I could, but then they get all attached. I like having someone who enjoys kicking me out of the door after it’s all over. No complications, just satisfaction,” Seggrit sighed, longingly. “It’s too bad that you’re now some holy paragon of virtue. Otherwise we could continue our little arrangement.” 

Echo gave him a dry glance as he stuffed his flaccid dick back into his pants, and laced his trouser back up. “I’m so sorry that my apparent holiness is going to keep you from orgasms. If you have the urge, perhaps you should take the matter in hand from now on,” she snorted, shaking her head slowly. She got up, and strolled towards the water basin. She took the cleaning cloth and wetted it before she cleaned herself up. 

“It’s not that you are the Herald of Andraste. I imagine there is a whole boatload of people wanting to get into your knickers, but while the townsfolk might be oblivious to our nightly trysts, the spymaster little scouts aren’t,” Seggrit stated, with a sardonic eyebrow arched. “I don’t know about you, but I have…business ventures that I’d rather not have the Left Hand poking around in.” 

Echo rolled her shoulders lightly, and pulled her tunic over her head. “I suppose I can’t blame you. She is one scary woman,” she admitted, picking his shirt off the floor and tossing it at him. “So since we aren’t going to fuck anymore does that mean I don’t get a discount at your shop?” 

Seggrit choked, then chuckled as he put his shirt back on. “I think I’ll let you still have it. For all the fond… _fond_ memories,” he said, dragging a lurid across her from head to toe. 

“You better get your head—both of them—out of those fond memories. I’ve already cleaned up, so if you get happy again you’re going to have to find some other way to deal with it,” Echo told him, with a deadpanned look. 

“Right. Right. Fuck, I’m _really_ going to miss you,” Seggrit said, with a frank honesty. 

Echo shifted, uncomfortably. There was no love, but she admitted a fondness for Seggrit despite his prickly nature. That still didn’t stop him from being a rude bastard in her eyes though. She walked over to the door to see him out. “If it helps soothe your sorrow, if I see any woman desperate enough for sex I promise to steer them your way.” 

“Oh, it’ll help,” Seggrit said, pausing by the threshold. “Do me a favor though?” 

“Hmm?” Echo raised a brow. 

“Find someone who can give you what you need, and appreciate the fuck out of you enough to stay and endure what scrutiny is thrown at them. From Nightingale or the world,” Seggrit told her, bluntly. “You’re worth more than a cheap fuck, Herald. It’s past time you realized that.” 

Echo was stunned. “You…what?” 

“If I was a better man, I’d given you that advice after our first time together, but I’m a selfish fuck and you were a nice, warm body,” Seggrit said, with a shrug of his shoulders. “Now that our little arrangement has come to an end, I figured I probably should say it before you get yourself involved with a worse bastard than me.” 

“I don’t know what to say,” Echo said, brows furrowed. “You…you almost sound like you’re human. This has thrown my entire world out of order.” 

“Don’t get used to it,” Seggrit stated, with a huff. “As soon as I walk out that door, I’m back to being the snotty bastard that I always am. Maybe you should try the Commander. I hear he is good with his sword.” 

“And the human in you is gone,” Echo said, flatly. 

“Imagine the gossip,” Seggrit smirked. 

Echo narrowed her eyes. “Cullen has his head so far up Catherine’s skirt that he can’t see any woman besides her. Honestly, the two are one argument away from throwing down and having sex in front of the Maker and everyone in the middle of the training yard,” she told him, with an eye roll. 

“Who says you can’t join them?” 

“Alright, out,” Echo said, pulling the door open. “You’ve ruin whatever respect I gained for you in that split second that you were almost a normal man.” 

Seggrit gave a soundless laugh, and walked out the door. He sauntered looking rather satisfied with himself, and Echo stood there watching him disappear around the corner when she felt her scalp prickle with alarm. Her head lifted upward, and she saw the door to Solas’s cabin slid shut. Her heart dropped into her stomach, and a horrible sensation crawled across her skin. _Had he seen? How much had he seen? Why the hell did she care?_

She knew why she cared. She had felt something stir between her and Solas. Never acted upon, or never brought up. There were no commitments between them, but as she closed the door behind her, she felt like a lover who had just got caught cheating. No matter what she did, that feeling just wouldn’t go away. 

* * *


	9. Dying in Your Arms: Her

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Summary: Echo is consumed by nightmares, and Fenris and Hawke pull her out of them in an unorthodox method.  
> Warning: Mildly dub-con, sleepy sex, sex fixes things  
> (Will be Three Parts, Dying in Your Arms: Her, Dying in Your Arms: Fenris and Hawke, Dying in Your Arms: Them)

* * *

Chapter Nine 

“Dying in Your Arms: Her”

* * *

“Did you think you could outrun me, oh fragile child? You were a gift. You are _my_ possession. Your soul, your body, the very blood in your veins all _belongs_ to me!” The dark voice crooned to her from somewhere in the darkness of her nightmare. 

Echo fought, and squeezed her eyes shut tight. “No, no, no,” she whispered, softly. Her nightmares had grown more terrifying. The easily beaten down demons of the Fade replaced with a vision of darkness so great that Echo could not wake herself, and only by strength of will was able to resist until Hawke or Fenris shook her awake before she alerted possibly enemies to their camp. 

The dark voice chuckled, _“Do you think their love with save you? How can it? Unlovable, broken thing, how could anyone ever love you?”_

She was drowning, being pulled under and she could feel herself falling when the nightmare dimmed, suddenly. She was slowly lured her back into consciousness by sharp nips of pleasure along her throat. Echo felt a whimper vibrate up her throat, her mind still addled with sleep, and all she could do was wither as the fire of desire seemed to consume her very flesh. All she could do was _feel_. The cool night air kisses her naked flesh, her tunic somehow vanished. The ground solid, and steady beneath her trembling thighs. The warmth of two hard, battle worn bodies pressed against her front and back, surrounding her like a cocoon. The body pressed against her back was broader and thick. The form pressed against her front lithe, but no less powerful. Hands were everywhere, dancing across her exposed flesh, and Echo felt that she should protest. Do something other than lay here moaning, and thrashing like a wanton woman. Instead, her traitorous hands reached out, groping and grasping for flesh in kind. 

The fire had died, only glowing embers remained that did nothing to cut through the dark night that had fallen over them, and somehow this just made the pleasure sharper. Unexpected, for she knew not what they would do, and Echo let out a shuddering gasp her back arched as a hot mouth closed over her nipple. The sensation so far different from when she would take pleasure by her own hand, the only way she had ever known such pleasure before. The wound inflicted by the nightmare soothed and healed, forgotten in the wake of the exquisite agony that Hawke and Fenris wrought on her body. 

A hand ran up the curve of her hip, tickling her sides—not enough to steal from the moment—but enough to leave her breathless before the hand cupped her breast that felt too full and too heavy. The sensation of hands and mouth upon her chest made her core throb, and her hips rock forwards, searching for fulfillment. A sense of urgency swamped through her as the hands that feasted upon her pale and milky flesh moved more intently, more swiftly. 

Nothing else matter other than this. This moment would be carved into her memory forever, treasured and remembered, and probably would ruin her for any others there on out. Hands worked free her belt, and the body at her back left for only a brief second to pull her leggings and underwear completely off before it swiftly return. “Oh,” was the only noise that Echo could make, surprised slightly, and yet not at all when two fingers teased at the opening of her sex. It was almost obscene at how very ready she was, and she bit her lip as a flush stole her cheeks. The fingers circled her entrance, gathering her slick on them and she hissed in pleasure. 

But the fingers were pulled away, and when Echo opened her mouth to protest, a loud squeal ripped up her throat when a hot, hungry mouth had replaced them. “Oh, my God. Oh, my God,” Echo gulped down each breath, her lungs burning hot inside of her chest. Her hips squirmed, pressing against the face between her thighs—Fenris’s face, a slight glow of his tattoo shined off of her skin—and two big brawny hands—Hawke’s powerful hands—held her hips in a vice grip not allowing her to move an inch. Instead, she could only lie there at the mercy of the pleasure, forced to take all that they were given her and more. Fenris’s tongue was so hot, sweeping across the secret bundle of nerves, lapping up the nectar of her sex like a man dying of thirst. 

Sounds broke the silence of the night. Moans and broken pleas. It took Echo a moment to realize that they all were coming from her mouth, and Fenris’s hand replaced one of Hawke’s, allowing the mage to reach up, and grasp her jaw. He turned her face towards him, and his mouth descended upon hers with a fierce passion the likes that she had never known. His tongue licked into her mouth, and he tasted like the salt of the sea with a hint of something more masculine underneath, and he swallowed the low groan she gave. 

Fenris pulled himself up from her sex, and as soon as Hawke released her from his kiss, Fenris’s mouth stole hers. Echo cried out, tasting herself on this tongue mixed with something that purely Fenris. Something that tasted like liquid moonlight, and left her heart pounding inside of her chest. Hawke’s hand slipped between her thighs, and two fingers plunged into the wet depths of her core, her body accepting them as if they were a part of her. Rhythmic strokes paired with Fenris’s fingers rubbing the hidden nub brought Echo closer and closer to the edge, and she shifted until her hands slid down the lengths of their hard, muscled bodies to find what she was looking for. She grasped both by their hard erection, the feel like velvet covered still and let’s just say, both males had plenty to proud of. 

She began to pump her hands along their hardness, and rewarded by a grunt from Fenris and a low groan from Hawke. As she stroked them, she could feel the difference between them. Hawke was thicker, so thick she could not touch her finger to her thumb while Fenris was leaner, but an inch or two longer. It was utterly sinful, learning their bodies this way as surely as they learned to master hers. Bites soothed with tongues placed all over her neck, and chest, claiming her in the most primal of ways, and Echo knew this was insanity. Diving head first into this, not caring if it would fundamentally change her friendships with both men, but she needed this too bad. 

She needed them. 

Hawke’s fingers work their magic inside of her hit that sweet spot, as he crooked them, and stars split her vision, her body arching forward as she screamed into Fenris’s mouth. Her body seemed to explode with pleasure as her mind ceased to be at all, and her hands tightened around the two men in the right way, bringing them all the edge with her. Hawke came first on a hoarse cry, the hot splash of cum against the back of her thighs. Fenris, brows furrowed and with a quiet grown, came in spurts across her stomach. Echo collapsed, boneless and spent between them. Her body twitched, with brief and sharp aftershocks of bliss that quivered through her, and she closed her eyes softly. She distantly heard both of them sigh with satisfaction, and before doubts of what this meant could enter her mind, strong arms wrapped around her from each side. The three of them a tangle of arms and legs that shouldn’t have been comfortable, but somehow, they fit like puzzle pieces. Wonderful and complete. Echo didn’t care what they were in the morning as her breaths slowed to match the steady ones of her male companions. All she knew was this was the first time she felt completely at peace, and at home. With that last thought, she fell into a dreamless sleep.


	10. Conquered *Rape/Non-Con*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank, MidnightGuardian, haha19, Recovette, Eirdaru, thunderscape7, AlexandraluvsAlistair, Dekicobee, Ardis, silverfox2011, auntjilly89, Verdandi73, Dragonpud, Misokitty, porcalein_XD, Evanelle, Notleks, Suzabel85, Redamber79, seraphem31, JoWeh, Nib, Jade_Blanc, Ms_Saboteur, Kohanita, Catann, nessakusterbeck, UsakoAuditore, brickholtz, KittyDragoness, melgonzo, eluria, QualityRachni, Hexpixie, 13_Ravens and the 31 guests for the kudos!
> 
> I want to thank misha_stardream, AdahlenAngel, AEMoore, UsakoAuditore, porcalein_XD, Redamber79, FirstFanGrrl for the bookmarks! :D
> 
> I want to thank, FirstFanGrrl, for the comments!

CHAPTER TEN 

“Conquered”

* * *

His cock was curved upward, and large than any she had ever seen. Sten was a large person—taller than even Alistair—and Ashlinn was short for a Ferelden woman, so logistically she knew that it was going to be a tight fit. A high pitched whimper drove out of her lips as her nails scraped down the front of his chest as Sten bounced her up and down on his glistening cock as if she were nothing more than a toy for him to seek his release. She was completely at his mercy, and her pussy convulsed and shook in a never ending orgasm that stole all of her senses, and all she could focus was on him and the painful pleasure that he wrought upon her body. 

It was as if the quanari male body had been made specifically to torment females. Overall it was the same as any other male, but there were subtle differences in their anatomy. Jutting out from the sides of his penis were jagged ridges that flared outward before sharply curving inward, as if to hook inside of her. Every time he pulled out of her, the ridges _dragged_ against her inner walls knocking the breath out of her, and her body quivered violently. There was also a rim that curved outward from the top of his cock that nestled right between her lips, hitting her clit with a mind numbing accuracy with each thrust as if it had been made for that. Oh, and Sten was fascinated by her clit. Apparently the female of the qunari species did not have it, and he took great pains in testing and tormenting Ashlinn to the brink with it over and over again before he shoved his huge cock into her tiny body. 

“S-sten…” She stuttered, her voice raw. She was surprised she could still speak after all the screams he had dragged out of her already, and her voice was completely taking when his hand wrapped around her throat like a vice. 

“It is now the Arishok,” he corrected, darkly. His calm composure that he always had on the battlefield had slipped into something primal and possessive. Chaotic and devastating as a dragon, and he poured that energy into the old dance between them. He had taken her when she washed upon his shores, and at first, assumed she was a demon masquerading with his Kadan’s face. The priestess soon proved that despite the Fade mark on her shoulder blade that she was entirely human, and with her memories, she proved that she was his Kadan. She had first came to him hoping he could send her back to Ferelden, back to the golden king who sat upon his throne—growing fat in his leisure no doubt, and Arishok was surprised how angry he became at her request. His anger had come to a head when he discovered she had sent a message to King Alistair against his wishes, and there had been a fight. 

Fists and sweat and blood, but she was weakened. Like a new born foul, and he had overtaken her. He had never intended to allow himself to take the pleasures of her flesh, but something deep inside him demanded he plant his seed in the deepest and most sweet spot of her body. To claim and conquer her until there was nothing left. Sten—she still called him—applied pressure around her throat, causing her pupils to dilate with panic and reluctant pleasure. He gave her no quarter, thrusting up against her as he brought her body down onto him. Her wet heat—too tight—clutched at him, gushing for him in ways that he had never felt before and he drove her pleasure into the edge of madness where the line of pain and pleasure blurred. 

She had fought him off, but clothes were easily torn. Flesh easily stirred and heated, and her body accepted him even as her mind rallied against him each and every step. But she would not be his Kadan if she were not this way. She gurgled and choked on her shallow breaths when he started to swell up inside of her, and he could feel his long awaited release building faster than a typhoon, but just as potent. The Qun had no place for such revelry, for such debauchery like this, and yet he could not stop himself from burying himself into her over and over. The slap of flesh against flesh was a sinful and decadent sound that echoed off the stone walls. He could not stop the fire that pulsed down his spine, and straight into his balls. 

He bit down roughly onto her breast, and she _screamed._ Her cunt gripped his manhood in a way that undone him, and his spilled himself into her depths. Her greedy body seemed to grasp him and pull more and more of his spend into her. 

Ashlinn tried to claw herself free as she felt the jets of his whitehot come splash her inside. Her over sensitive nerves cried out at the sensation, and the way he had himself so deep in her that the tip of his cock was pressed painfully against her cervix. Tears of relief and pain streaked down her cheeks, and she gasped roughly when he pulled himself free of her vagina. The last bit of his come spilt out of his manhood and upon her stomach, painting her and marking her. 

There was a stillness that followed. Where nothing, but the sound of their harsh breaths filled the room. Ashlinn stared up at the stony ceiling, her mind completely numb over what had just happened while Sten stood there looking down at her. The emotions he had kept under a tight leash swirled in the pit of his gut, and he shoved his hand between her legs. Two fingers plunged deep into her—the scent of their combine fluids was one that would be imprinted upon him forever—and he grasped her chin, roughly when she tried to crawl away from him. He held her there, his eyes stared unblinking into hers as he pulled his fingers out. He raised his hand, displaying their come that coated his digits, and he growled, “Your King will come here to my lands, but he will find that he is too late. I have already conquered and claimed you. You shall know no other.” 

And he mercifully left after that. 

And Ashlinn broke down into sobs. 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This turned a whole lot darker than I intended. I almost didn't share it. 
> 
> The Qunari anatomy is just something that came to me. I figured there had to be some kind of different physically between all the races, even if they shared similarities, too. If anyone want to use the anatomy I created here for the Qunari for any purposes, smutty or otherwise, feel free! ;)


	11. Wake Me Up Before You Go, Go

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> I want to thank, MidnightGuardian, haha19, Recovette, Eirdaru, thunderscape7, AlexandraluvsAlistair, Dekicobee, Ardis, silverfox2011, auntjilly89, Verdandi73, Dragonpud, Misokitty, porcalein_XD, Evanelle, Notleks, Suzabel85, Redamber79, seraphem31, JoWeh, Nib, Jade_Blanc, Ms_Saboteur, Kohanita, Catann, nessakusterbeck, UsakoAuditore, brickholtz, KittyDragoness, melgonzo, eluria, QualityRachni, Hexpixie, 13_Ravens and the 31 guests for the kudos!  
> I want to thank misha_stardream, AdahlenAngel, AEMoore, UsakoAuditore, porcalein_XD, Redamber79, FirstFanGrrl for the bookmarks! :D  
> Summary: Mahanon has had a crush on his boss—his very straight boss—Dorian Pavus, and has been fighting his emotions for months now. But after getting drunk at office party, Mahanon wakes up naked in Dorian’s bed. Turns out that Dorian isn’t as straight as Mahanon believed, and after learning of Mahanon’s crush, Dorian is determined to rectify the situation.

CHAPTER ELEVEN 

“Wake Me Up Before You Go, Go”

* * *

Mahanon had managed to form a calm façade around Dorian, never letting him see how attracted he was to him. He knew that Dorian didn’t swing that way; that fact painfully driven home at every party or event that Dorian showed up with a blond bombshell at his side. The second he had stepped into his office for that fateful interview last spring, Mahanon had pretty much been crushing on his boss. Who could blame him for being so weak? Dorian had a magnetism about him, not to mention devastatingly good looks with his ebony hair that was slicked back out of his face, dark skinned that reminded Mahanon of melted caramel, and that mustache! That handlebar mustache that had no right to be attractive, but was and had hit a kink that Mahanon didn’t even know he had. 

He recalled during the interview when Dorian asked him—in a voice that should be outlawed it was just too seductive—what Mahanon considered his strongest skill, and the elf almost blurted out, “Sucking cock.” Oh, he really wanted to say it, but managed to refrain from the impulse. Now Mahanon was by no means outgoing, but something about Dorian made him want to be like that. He couldn’t understand it. And what was worse was the cordial relationship they had. 

Not that Mahanon didn’t value Dorian’s friendship, the other man was witty, sarcastic and intelligent that made conversations enjoyable, but it just made the knot inside of his heart grow tight because Dorian had no idea that he was absolutely head over heels for him. 

So waking up naked in his boss’s arms, and bed was not something that Mahanon would ever thought would happen in a million years. Despite dreaming of it and jerking off to fantasy of it, Mahanon had thought it a pipe dream so could any blame him for being freaked out when it became a freaking reality? It had been after a big party, and low and behold, Dorian hadn’t brought a blond as his date. He had brought a dark skinned goddess with a rack so perfect that even a gay man like him could appreciate it, but his appreciation didn’t last long when Dorian introduced them. Isabella Rivani seemed like a nice enough, if not forward woman, but her knowing eyes that cut into him like she knew what he felt for Dorian made Mahanon wish the world would swallow him whole. 

Mahanon made a quick escape, and thought that was that. Until he later noticed Isabella and Dorian in a whispered conversation, and noticed Isabella point at him and Dorian lifted his head. Their eyes clashed across the room, and Mahanon felt his heart plummet into his stomach certain that his secret was out. Feeling like his job was lost, and that his friendship was over, he made his way to the mini bar with haste and started to drink until his blood was ninety nine percent alcohol. 

Mahanon swallowed, his mouth feeling like cobwebs and he looked down at Dorian who laid slumbering beside him. That gorgeous tan and the muscles of his shoulders that Mahanon wanted nothing more than to sink his teeth into, and then the elf winced slightly. He probably already did at some point because he was completely naked, and he was betting if he lifted the cover to peek that Dorian was probably naked to. 

Sliding off the mattress as slippery as eel, Mahanon scrambled around for his clothes. He couldn’t stay here. Obviously at some point in the night the drunk him managed to con Dorian into sex. Sex that for the life of him he couldn’t remember, which was highly disappointing and relieving in the same instance. 

“Leaving so soon?” A voice made him halt. 

Mahanon held his breath, his entire body quivered and he closed his eyes. Oh, he felt his heart break inside of his chest. He heard the blanket being shoved aside and Dorian’s feet the hardwood floor, but he couldn’t bear turning around to face him. And hearing Dorian’s voice made the tears of shame pool in his eyes, then down his cheeks. _I have ruined everything._

“Mahanon?” 

Mahanon couldn’t say a word around the white hot knot in his throat, and he buried his face into his hands when he heard Dorian get up out of the bed. Footsteps padded over towards him, and he felt Dorian reach out, but shrank away from it. “Dorian, please,” Mahanon blubbered, ashamed of taking advantage of his friend like this. “I’m so…so sorry. I should have never taken advantage of you.” 

There was a long silent pause before Dorian’s hand landed on his shoulder and spun him around rather abruptly. Mahanon flinched, expecting a punch. Instead, Dorian gently caressed his face. 

“Hush now. Why all these tears?” Dorian tsked, running his thumb across Mahanon’s lip. His honeyed gaze stared knowingly as though he knew Mahanon’s pain intimately, and he cupped the elf’s chin with unexpected tenderness. “What is all this nonsense about you taking advantage of me, hmm? I’d rather say you were too drunk to take advantage of anyone, though I wouldn’t have minded if you had.” 

Mahanon’s mouth dropped open. “What?” 

Dorian smirked. “Tell me, how long have you wanted me? All the fantasy you were telling me about last night…all the positions and situations were so great in number that it had me thinking that you must have been desiring me for quite some time,” his boss purred, his fingertips ghosting across Mahanon’s hammering pulse. 

“I…I…” Mahanon couldn’t come with a decent reply. His mind floundered, trying to process all that Dorian had said. “But you…you always have a date!” 

Dorian’s brows rose in question. 

“Female dates…to every party, and the rumors—” 

“Do always believe in rumors? Such a shame, I thought you more of an intellectual than a sheep that follows the herd,” Dorian said, his tone deceptively idle. “They are all actresses that I hire to play a part of the girl of the week to keep up the charade for my father’s sake because he does not believe that men should be with other men.” 

Mahanon stared at him, his hand reaching up to grasp at Dorian’s wrist. He licked his lips, and took deep breaths. “You would live your entire life living a lie?” The whisper fell from the elf’s lips, and he watched a pain expression cross Dorian’s face. He knew what it was to be rejected for his sexuality. He had dealt with the adversity, and he could understand the impulse to hide. Now that he thought back to all the parties, his mind went over the encounter with Dorian and his dates. There were never more than kisses traded, a few flirty words exchanged, but now Mahanon could see that they lacked the charge of desire. He had been so blind, but he wasn’t sure where that left his friendship with Dorian after this. 

“Screaming on the inside, and no one hears a sound,” Dorian said, with a tight smile. His smile fell at the understanding shining in Mahanon’s eyes, and he cleared his throat awkwardly. “I don’t intend to be screaming for the rest of my life. I intended to come out last spring, but my father got ill. He…he doesn’t have much longer, so I did not tell him. I didn’t want to be the cause of his death, and would it hurt to pretend for a little bit longer to be the son he always hoped for?” 

Mahanon drew in a shaky breath. “You shouldn’t have to live that way. Not even for a day.” 

“Perhaps not, but we always hurt ourselves to spare the ones we love, do we not?” Dorian leaned forward, pressing a kiss along his jaw. His lips quirked upward into a smirk when Mahanon drew in a sharp breath. “Now that we’ve got misunderstandings out of the way, we should move onto something more primal.” 

“Primal?” Mahanon’s throated bobbed. His body stirred instantly at the sensual promise in Dorian’s voice, and he felt his chest expand and collapse with desperate gulps of air. _Is this going where I think it is going?_ He wasn’t sure to dare to hope that his affections were returned. 

“You see I have desired you for as long as you have desired me. I never acted upon it. Dipping my pen in the company ink has never worked out well, but you…you tempt me,” Dorian said, in a husky whisper. His arms snaked around Mahanon, bringing the other man flush against him. “Make me want things that I shouldn’t, but I can’t regret it. Not when you are here with me like this.” 

Heat pooled into his lower stomach, and his member rose to attention. Mahanon felt his cheeks turn red, and he let out a stuttered breath as Dorian’s fingernails scraped gently across his abs. “Well…” Mahanon whispered, breathless with anticipation. “Now that you have me…what are you going to do with me?” 

Dorian smirked. 

* * *

Mahanon let out a high pitched whine, his hips arched and his fingers were buried into the hair at the nape of Dorian’s neck as the other man drew his dick deeper into his mouth. Dorian tongue brushed the sensitive head of his cock when he pulled back, just enough to tease Mahanon. “You are not a nice man,” Mahanon moaned, tilting his head back as the hot water from the showerhead cascaded down upon them. 

Dorian chuckled, releasing Mahanon’s dick with a loud pop. “No…I’m not,” Dorian admitted, with a sharp smile. He bit and kiss his way up Mahanon’s chest, and then he pinned the elf back against the shower wall. He turned Mahanon around, pressing the elf up against the cool slick tile while he lend forward to whisper in his ear. “But I don’t think you want a nice man.” 

Mahanon had no reply as Dorian’s finger massaged his back entrance, slick with only water. It was going to burn and hurt, but Mahanon was already burning and aching. He just wanted Dorian to open him up, and slid deep inside. He pressed his forehead against the tile, and Dorian worked one digit inside of him. The muscles in his throat corded tight, and he panted loudly as Dorian worked in and out of him. “No, I don’t want a nice man. I want you. I want you so bad.” 

Dorian chuckled, darkly. Nipping at his throat, Dorian purred, “Patience, amatus. I want to savor this.” 

And Dorian meant it. After opening carefully preparation that Mahanon panting and moaning like a street corner whore, Dorian pulled his mouth off the elf with a loud pop and rose to his feet, his hands urging Mahanon to turn around. “Oh, Creators,” Mahanon rasped out, his forehead pressed against the cool tile and his palms planted flat against the wall. His cock jerked in anticipation when Dorian spread his legs, and positioned himself at his back entrance. He barely registered Dorian grabbing the bottle of lube—the man kept lube in his shower, who does that?—and pop it open, smothering his cock with it to ease the way. 

He keened when Dorian finally started to enter him. It had been so long since he had sex like this with another person and not with the toys that he brought at the sex shop. He choked on the water cascading down his face feeling every inch of that Dorian pressed deep inside of him, and his body was drowning in a sea of feelings. The cool lube that made the stretch easier, but left just the right amount of pain that had his cock leaking precum. Deeper and deeper Dorian invaded him until his balls rested against the swell of Mahanon’s ass, and the elf let out a shuddering breath. “You are…Creators, I don’t think I’ve been…” He couldn’t string together a sentence with Dorian buried inside of him like this. None of his previous lovers had been so long to penetrate him in such a manner, it made his head spin and when Dorian pulled out, the sensation made his moan loudly. He thrust back inside, hitting Mahanon’s prostate so hard that the elf saw stars. “Oh, please, please…just like that!” 

Dorian did not disappoint him. With one hand on Mahanon’s hip to keep his thrust steady, the other hand wrapped around the elf pulling him flush against him. His fingers stroked and plucked the elf’s nipples, and Mahanon had never realized how pleasurable that could be. Perhaps, he just didn’t have the right man working magic on his body. He bucked and slammed his hips back on Dorian, meeting his every thrust. It drove the burning flames of ecstasy in his veins higher and higher, and he groaned when Dorian whispered all kinds of dirty promises and sweet nothing in his ear before taking the pointed tip into his mouth and sucked hard. 

It was like being struck by lightning, it shattered him down through his spine and his balls tightened giving him a mere second warning before his came, his seed spraying across the shower wall. Mahanon whimpered, feeling so overwhelmed by the orgasm. He could feel every nerve ending with a hyper attention, feeling how Dorian’s cock dragged across the walls of his backside and how he swelled up just two thrusts before he released his spend straight into Mahanon’s body. Mahanon shook, his hand wrapping around Dorian’s arm trying to pull him impossibly closer in that moment. It took them several moments to descend down from the high of sex, and their heavy breaths mingled in the hot air. 

“That…that was more perfect than I ever imagined,” Dorian panted, sliding his mouth over Mahanon’s. 

Mahanon gave a dopey smile in reply. He could finally cross of shower sex off of his bucket list, and before the day was through, Dorian helped him with a few more sexcapades that he had always wanted to try. 

* * *

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is the first time I wrote exclusively for a male pairing in an explicit sexual situation. Tell me what you all thought, what you liked and what you didn’t. Constructive criticism to help me work out the kinks in my righting. Huh, that could be viewed as a pun. Kink. Ignore me it’s late at night when I wrote this.


End file.
